


psychomachia

by islandofme



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, F/F, Slow Burn, and people who resent each other, just people who love each other, no mates, rosalie isn't pigheaded she is just strong-willed, unstoppable force? meet immovable object
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandofme/pseuds/islandofme
Summary: when the cullens leave forks, rosalie stays behind - no human is going to run her out of town, even if that means her family going without her. she'd happily go the rest of her afterlife never seeing bella swan again.the author has other ideas.
Relationships: Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan, minor edward/bella, minor emmett/rosalie, unrequited jacob/bella
Comments: 73
Kudos: 388





	1. it goeth before the fall

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: this is barely proofread and likely messy but if i stopped to think about the fact i am writing twilight fanfiction in 2020 i would have to throw my macbook off a cliff

Rosalie sat in the large, empty house and glared at her own half-reflection in the pristine glass that stood in lieu of a back wall. It was raining, of course. Her lips turned down another half-degree as a group of water droplets converged, sluicing down the window pane and distorting the image of her unhappiness.

She turned away, her fruitless staring contest over, and instead looked towards a blank slate of wall. A rectangular patch stood out as just barely lighter than the rest of it, where until a month ago Esme’s favourite painting had hung. The difference in colour was hardly discernible even to her eyes and she felt sure the boys, vampiric senses notwithstanding, would fail to notice the difference in hue. Rosalie huffed, annoyed at the reminder of her family, and then took a ragged, unnecessary breath; suddenly she felt hollowed out by their absence, like her sculpted marble body was as fragile as eggshell. She swallowed, throat too dry to be comfortable, and stood.

Had the rainwater not interrupted her stand-off with her reflection, she would have had to leave soon anyway; she had watched as her golden eyes faded closer to black and felt her mouth grow dry. Had she really been sitting there for a week? It had been a long while since she had been so still for so long. Blending into the human world required constant movement, at least during the daylight hours, and she had had her family to occupy her nights - to laugh with, to argue with, to exist with. She’d had Emmett, who made her feel more alive, more in motion than anything else in this afterlife. 

The cruel pale-hued patch of wall splintered as her fist made contact with it, barely hard enough to even be satisfying, but she didn’t want to bring the foundations of the house down by exerting her full strength. As angry as she was she couldn’t bring herself to destroy the building. She knew the care with which Esme had designed its every aspect.

Edward liked to say she’d inherited her human self’s pigheadedness as her special power. Rosalie preferred to think of her stubbornness as possession of an iron will and immaculate self-control, body and mind. She would simply _decide_ not to let it affect her. Leaving the house, she quickly discarded any notion of missing her family and at once felt more grounded in her solitude. Why should _she_ leave this town for a _human_?

Edward could call her pig-headed and prideful all he wanted. Emmett could gaze at her, mournful and reproachful and pleading. Esme’s face could curl up on itself, muscles remembering what it is to cry but no longer able to. Carlisle could make that same compassionate, irritatingly understanding expression he always made when it came to her decision making, born from his guilt over making one _irrevocable_ choice for her. Jasper could frown, looking more pained than usual, certain he was to blame for this family schism. And Alice - well, Alice had looked more confused than anything else. Like she couldn’t see what was to come.

Either way, it made no difference now. They had made their choice, and she had made hers, and now she had more important things to consider. She needed to hunt.

Hunting in the rain was never ideal. The dense humidity of the woods behind the house hung in the air like a thick veil. Occasionally, a leaf in the canopy would dip, no longer able to bear the weight of its accumulated rain water and a fat droplet would fall, piercing the otherwise stagnant atmosphere. Rosalie growled, wiping her face with the back of her hand as one such droplet splashed against her cheekbone like a tear. If she’d been paying the slightest attention she would have noted its trajectory in time to move. As it was, her face was wet - but she’d caught a scent, far more quickly than she had anticipated in this rain. It was an... unusual scent, at least for these parts, this close to the forest edge - like a wet dog, almost. Maybe an errant pet-owner had strayed closer to the property than was usual; the vegetation here grew thick and fast, and Rosalie hadn’t been doing anything for the upkeep of the tasteful-but-stern no trespassing signs Esme kept at the edge of their land, mostly for Jasper’s sake. But it couldn’t be that. She would smell the human owner far sooner than she would their pet. What else? _Surely_ not- ? No, the Quileutes had long since lost their bite, as much as they still liked to bark. Some stray, then. Rosalie dismissed the trail - pets were never good eating, and besides, maybe it had a family it would find its way home to. 

Instead she started running, a silent blur effortlessly dodging through hanging branches and fallen trunks, deeper into the woods to a clearing by a creek where the elk liked to gather. They weren’t there now, but the slightly bitter smell of their blood was too strong for the rain to mask here, scent trails meandering into the trees; the animals were close. There was too much interfering noise for her to be able to sound out exactly how far away they were when the ground was damp and absorbent like this, muffling hoofsteps; the soft rustle of the rain-drenched leaves, the whistling of the breeze, the harsh slap of water against water as puddles formed in the clearing. So she relied on scent alone - not a problem but... boring. After this long Rosalie preferred to set herself challenges, like hunting without taking a breath. The vampire equivalent of trying to do something blind-folded or with your off-hand, she supposed. Needs must though, and she wasn’t hunting for leisure today. The aching dryness of her throat, impervious to its drenched surroundings, reminded her of that. Still, it didn’t mean she couldn’t have fun: Emmett liked to fight his prey; Edward liked to chase; Alice liked to perch on a rock, pretending to be bored, until her dinner came to her.

Rosalie liked to surprise her quarries, prowl after them so quietly that they never saw her pounce. 

It took a great deal of control and a great deal of patience to move so slowly, so quietly, once Rosalie let her instincts reign. Human senses were so pathetic that a hunting vampire had little need to disguise their approach, and it isn’t like they would have any chance of escape should they be forewarned. But for Rosalie, slipping unnoticed right up to an animal - so much more perceptive than people - was a thrill. Killing it quietly was a kindness. 

No creature deserved to die afraid.

Nearing the end of the scent trail, Rosalie followed a slightly branching fragrance, drifting away from the rest of the herd. It wasn’t the most appetising smell - a touch stale, a sign that the elk was growing old. It had already lived a full life, and drinking from the frailer animals kept the core population strong. 

Rosalie stole as near as she could to the animal and watched its sedate head dip slowly into a slow-moving stream to take a drink. And then, without a sound, she moved in close. Her arms wrapped around its thick neck like an embrace. She twisted, and then bit, and then drank.

Sated, she gently lowered the immense beast to the ground. A pair of handsome crows, dark-eyed scavengers, fluttered onto a low hanging branch on the other side of the water. They gazed at her boldly. Bored, and unused to any creature being so confident in her presence, she bared her teeth at them and hissed. One cawed back, almost a cackle, as if laughing at her bluff. Rosalie smiled then - just the barest hint of a smile - for the first time in a month. She had always admired crows. She hears them flit down to feast on the elk carcass as she turns to return home, too bold to even wait for her departure. They didn’t fear her. Stupid, brave little birds.

Taking a different route back to the house - not that there was so much variety in the heavy lushness of the foliage, the muddy rivulets that carved through the mulch - Rosalie caught that wet dog smell again, stronger this time, and more unpleasant. Curiosity gripped her, muscles tensing automatically. She had dismissed the idea rapidly before, but now the stench was more potent, she grew certain - her immaculate recall had never lied to her before. It was the stink of the La Push wolves, or something very like them. No pet dog caused her to recoil in distaste like that. 

Interesting - Carlisle thought the ability of the Quileutes had been lost, but maybe her family’s return to Forks had revived whatever lay latent. She snorted to herself at the timing; the wolves waking just as the vampires skipped town. This one had ventured closer to the Cullen’s land than Ephraim Black’s pack ever had, other than the occasional new shifter going rogue and trying to pick a fight; the pups had trouble controlling their anger, but their alpha had always brought them thoroughly under heel.

The smell wasn’t so fresh - a few hours old, maybe - but she followed it anyway, only inhaling it as much as was necessary to stay on the trail. Once she realised where her path was taking her, cool anger bubbled in her chest. Light filtered more strongly through the overhead branches here, the canopy sparser here in the forest fringe, just a few dozen metres before where the trees opened up onto the quiet residential street where Isabella Swan lived.

Risking a breath, Rosalie felt her throat constrict as the annoyingly familiar, irritatingly appealing floral aroma flooded her senses. The scent was hours old but hung in the saturated air like mist on a spider’s web. Even so soon after hunting her mouth felt dry at the taste of the fragrant air. 

The sensation was tempered by the wet-dog wolf smell that lurked at the edge of her awareness. She scoffed, remembering Bella’s friendship with Ephraim’s great-grand-whatever. Her family had upped and moved for the sake of this girl’s safety, and instead of settling for a lovely, normal, _human_ life, Bella had traded vampires for werewolves. _Edward was right_ , Rosalie allowed herself to think, comforted by the fact that she was far out of his eavesdropping range. _She doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation._

Her gaze drifted down the lightly trodden path that led out of the forest, where she could just see the white exterior of the Swan house, obscured by haphazardly arranged tree trunks. A book, out of place in the undergrowth just off of the path, caught her notice. Moving towards it, she noted its beauty; it was clearly very old but it remained the rich dark green of an oak leaf, a gold peacock splayed across the cover. An illustrated copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. With a jolt, she realised she recognised the edition - not from her endless archive of perfect vampire memory, but from before she died. The recollection swam into the forefront of her mind, hazy as human memories were, but no less true: a book, pride of place on her mother’s shelf. Not an old copy of the book then by any means, but still older than she was at eight years old, begging her mother to show her the illustrations again. She had loved to sit in her mother’s lap, gingerly turning the pages with the deliberate care of a child who knew they had been entrusted with something precious. It had not been valuable at the time: beautiful but popular because of it, and not rare. But her mother had adored it, and what does a child know of treasure but what they are taught to cherish?

Another memory, unbidden - three or four years later, growing aware of her beauty for the first time and truly spoiled; she was conceited and self-absorbed, and when her mother did not pay her the attention she desired, she had ripped the book out of her hands. She had pretended not to care as tears welled in her mother’s eyes at the sound of ripping paper, tried to convince herself it served her mother right for ignoring her in favour of a stupid book, but her heart hammered with regret and guilt as she watched the ragged-edged page flutter to the ground. It was her favourite illustration, of handsome Mr. Darcy telling beautiful, proud Lizzie Bennett how ardently he loved her.

Moving so quickly she didn’t register she _had_ moved until she was holding the book, Rosalie brought it to her chest. She could almost imagine her dead heart thumping the way it had then, and she felt sure her hands were trembling until she looked at them and saw they were as still and stiff as stone. _Stupid_ , she told herself. _There’s no chance that..._

Flipping through the book ( _gently, gently, gently_ , she repeated to herself like a mantra, careful of her agitated strength _)_ she landed on chapter thirty-four - or rather where it should be. She ran a smooth finger down the edge of the shred of torn paper peeking out from the binding just once, and then slowly - because this could all be a coincidence still, she told herself, knowing instinctively that it’s was not - turned back to the first page. She saw the name written in a sprawling, elegant, _familiar_ script on the inside cover. She closed the book. 

And she ran.

Rosalie had alway preferred to stew in her thoughts, stir them up occasionally and never let them settle. Running was more Edward’s thing but now she sprinted, for miles and miles, confused and sad and confused and wistful and joyful and - _angry_ , suddenly, coming to a halt. How had Isabella Swan, of all the humans in the world, come into possession of _this_ book? (Rosalie could not doubt that it was Bella’s now, clutched as it was against her breastbone, so close to her nose. The heady floral fragrance was etched into the cloth of the book’s cover.) _How dare she_ leave it tossed in the mud in the rain... surely she knew it was precious, old and beautiful as it was?

She growled, and headed back to the empty house. No-one in the town, including Bella, knew she’d remained in Forks when her family left - but maybe she’d pay her a visit, and teach her a thing or two about how to respect another person’s property.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. strive on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which rosalie restores a book and bella is not okay // the rosalie character study continues and it seems bella is living in her head rent-free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what you think you want: rosalie & bella making out
> 
> what you really want: rosalie thinking about fixing a book for a thousand words. rosalie fixing a book for another fifteen hundred words. bella in a truck. 
> 
> no? well.... at least bella is in this chapter? and they might even chat in the next!
> 
> disclaimer: i still can't remember anything that happened in the books, i clearly did not write pride and prejudice, and under no circumstances try to restore a valuable book using the methods ripped off the internet and detailed in this chapter. have not proofread, deep inner shame, blah blah blah

Esme liked to restore old books. A hobby she had developed, as they were all prone to do, to stave off the boredom brought on by an eternity of waking hours. Rosalie helped her sometimes, enjoying the quiet process, the deliberate and delicate touch it required, watching grime and mildew fade to reveal the original glory of the pages, or at least something like it. It reminded her in a way of working on an old car: it wasn’t something you could approach carelessly, working with something so fragile and rare, maybe even one of a kind.

It was more peaceful with books, though, no metallic clangs or pungent oil. As much as Rosalie loved those things about her mechanics projects, there were days where her senses would overwhelm her like she was a newborn again and the sound of metal on metal was grating, the smell of gasoline burned like fire, and even the impossibly fine sandstone grit of her workshop floor was unpleasantly abrasive against her smooth, hard skin. On those days, she would choose a worn book - any book, often something valuable from Carlisle’s vast collection of tomes but sometimes just a stray dime novel she’d picked up at some point in her long afterlife - and she would find Esme, and Esme would smile at her, soft and maternal and understanding. And then they would sit, companionable and quiet, each working separately but passing tools between them, anticipating what help the other would need. For Rosalie, time would slow down - not the aching, arduous, grinding time-passing of immortality, but like sitting in the eye of a hurricane while the world spun on without her. An escape from its noise and smells and lurid colours and the sharp pain of stinging regret.

It would be serendipitous, were it not so painful, that restoring the book would provide the perfect relief from the distress and confusion that finding it had wrought upon her. 

She wasn’t exactly sure where in the house Esme kept her restoration supplies, she realised: somewhere in her office, Rosalie supposed, flitting up the stairs to go and search. It looked different than she was accustomed to. Before, beautiful sketches had been pinned neatly to the walls, a history lesson in architectural design through the 20th century, and an ode to the movements that came before. Shelves lined the room, stacked with file-folders and carefully labelled boxes, a collection of the work Esme was proudest of and wanted to keep with her always. These were gone.

Still, in the corner of the room dedicated to more crafty supplies, the pull-out drawers of the vertical shelving were still brimming with wools and thread and carefully folded cloth, things that were easy to replace, or to store in each of their residences until they returned. Hopefully the same would apply to the tools she was looking for.

It wasn’t difficult to ascertain the location of the book-binding glue once she caught its sharp, distinctive scent. It was inside the top drawer of a cabinet tucked into the alcove, lined up next to a sheaf of wax papers, a fresh packet of document cleaning pads, a pot of the strange cleaning putty she realised she didn’t know the name for, and a cloth pencil case holding an array of brushes, their bristles varying in length and rigidity.

Scooping up the supplies and tucking them into the crease of one elbow, she moved over towards the beautiful desk that faced the window, adding an art gum eraser to her pile and taking the desk-top vacuum cleaner that normally kept the work surface pristine. Now it left a dark patch in its wake, stark against the fine sheen of dust that coated the glossy wood.

Her nose twitched in irritation at the gritty sensation of the air in her nostrils as she disturbed the particulate. She determined to clean later. She had never had to be house proud - she died before she ever ran a home, and no girl as pretty and rich as she had been was expected to do _chores._ And then she woke up to this new life (or life-adjacent) and Esme kept everything so immaculate that she had never had to worry about cobwebs forming in the crevices until now.

She stopped twice more, first to collect the slightly damp book and second to retrieve paper towels and a soft dust-cloth from the cupboard under the stairs, before leaving the house. She cut through the driveway to enter her workshop, moving past the the neatly parked vehicles - far fewer than usual, but still a few cars, a couple of bikes, the empty frame of the car she was building from scratch - into the airy, bright room where she planned her projects. It was a contrast to the clutter of rest of the workshop, the walls of which were stacked high with car-parts and tools, organised by year, by use, by model, by how highly she rated their quality - her organisational system was a nightmare to anyone else but her, which was exactly how she liked it. Nobody touched her cars.

Instead, the soundproofed walls were a soft grey, almost white, pale enough to capture the light without being harshly brilliant. Her desktop was neat, her laptop tucked into the sliding tray beneath the surface and cables hidden within the frame of the bureau. A pot held a selection of immaculately sharpened pencils and an array of measuring rules lay in their place beside it. Other than that, everything was tidily arranged in the desk drawers, or kept in order in the adjacent filing cabinet. The room was spartan, too plain to even be considered stylish for its minimalism, but it was empty in a way that Rosalie found calming. This blank space was her refuge, even as she relished ostentation and luxury outside of it.

She carefully placed the book onto the cutting-mat surface of the desk, arranging the tools around it, before inspecting the damage. It was in remarkable condition considering its age, a good twenty years older than even she was, having belonged to her mother before her. The spine was only beginning to creep away from the pages. The gilt of the page edges was scuffed but barely, and splattered with mud. There was a slight rent in the board of the hinge, which given time might fissure further to split the spine from the front cover. It would be worth sealing now to prevent future problems. Most pressing was the damp, threatening to curl the paper into waves should it be allowed to dry naturally. It wasn’t completely saturated. The rain had been more of a drizzle closer to the town the town and the book was well-shielded from precipitation by the overhanging canopy. These factors saved it from a drenching, but the soggy air had still seeped into the pages, the cloth cover. The book had been splayed open on the ground, like it had been dropped, and mud stained the centrefold like an ugly splash of brown watercolour, marred by specks of leaf-litter. The green edges of the covers were caked with dirt where they had touched the ground. A few of the pages were touched by mildew, the musty smell of the old book a sure giveaway.

Rosalie started by gently placing a sheet of absorbent towel between each page of the book, taking care to separate the wet leaves that clung together without tearing. It would have taken a human hours to do so delicately enough. As it was, it took her several minutes, haptic senses finely tuned to ascertain the correct strength to handle the paper. She closed the book, the paper towels peeking past the edges of the cover, placed a hand either side of it, and squeezed. The pressure she exerted was perfectly even and perfectly judged to squeeze excess moisture from the pages. She locked her muscles into place, leaning her elbows against the desk and waited until she was sure the towels had absorbed all they could, and then repeated the whole process. This time the kitchen towels didn’t saturate, the paper as dry as it would get without air flow. Switching on the room’s aircon, she made sure the air was circulating without blowing directly onto the pages of the book. Starting from the first page, she let each leaf finish drying out nice and flat, scrutinising the subtle changes in colour as the water evaporated and every so often turning the page.

It was hard for Rosalie not to let her expansive mind drift as she watched this with no way to rush the slow process, her brain assigning just a fragment of its power and attention to inspecting the pages and leaving the rest free to wander. She wondered about the way she’d found the book. Initially she had judged Bella for being careless, perhaps letting it fall out of an open backpack or placing it down _(in the mud!)_ , distracted by something else. Now, less overwhelmed by the shock and fresh guilt of her re-emerged human memories, she begrudgingly acknowledged that this would not be in character. She had met Bella enough times - too many times, really, since she bemoaned the girl’s presence in her life at all - to have seen the reverence with which the girl would stroke a finger down the spines of the books on the shelves lining the Cullen’s walls, as if she was too in awe to really handle them. She had met her enough to know that she was physically pathetic, clumsy as a day-old faun (as if the debacle at her birthday party wasn’t proof enough) but never thoughtless. 

She thought again of the wolf-stench in the woods at the back of the Swan property, recalling now they way it had wrapped around the edges of Bella’s floral scent but never actually mixed with it. Curious. She shrugged to herself out of habit. She would get answers soon, if only to see what the girl knew of Quileute shifters and to spitefully reclaim the book she had found, _her_ book.

Eventually the pages finished drying, even the mud caking the cover edges now hard and cracking. Rosalie turned on the small vacuum cleaner, placing the dust cloth over its spout, and ran it over the sullied edges, the dried dirt on the gilt pages. She took the document cleaning pads and softly scrubbed at the filthy centre-fold, brushing the dirt away as it loosened its grip on the paper, leaving behind only an ugly wash of brown. The putty she didn’t know the name for did a good job at lifting most of the stain, but there would always be a faint difference in colour. Turning her attention back to the cover, she pulled a soft-bristled toothbrush from its case and carefully dislodged the dirt particles adhered to the cloth, finally going over it with the art gum until the gold embossing shone back at her, the way she had always admired as a little girl. Rosalie flipped back to the pages afflicted by mildew, easily registering the spots by sight and smell, sliding wax paper underneath before using a clean brush to work at the blemishes, unbothered by the task a human would need a dust mask for. She took a small container of rubbing alcohol from its snug position in the brush case and swabbed the ethanol over the mildew. The musty smell remained, but that would be the last step.

Now cleaned, she turned her attention to the book’s structural issues, carefully sealing the split in the cover, before coating a rod from the brush case with binding glue and pushing it into the bloated gap between the spine and the pages. She slid wax paper against the inside covers to catch any leaking adhesive and pressed the spine forward, running the hard edge of a measuring rule along the creases where the cover hinged, ensuring it was all lined up correctly, that it would be as perfect as she remembered.

There was only one fault left, one that preceded the wear and tear of age and the muck of the woods: the jagged edge of the missing page, apparently long lost. Rosalie hesitated before pulling a sheet of paper from the top drawer of the desk, raking her diamond hard nails across the page with more precision than any guillotine, cutting it down to size.

Picking up a pencil, she began to sketch, her recollection of the illustration too murky to replicate exactly, shimmering with the ephemeral haze that cloaked all but the most sharply painful of her human memories. Still, the lines of the two figures were there, Mr. Darcy’s hands clasped as he tilted towards Elizabeth who perched elegantly on the edge of the sofa, poised but aloof as she clutched a letter from her sister. Close to finishing, Rosalie appraised the work as a whole. The pencil snapped in her grip, smudging her alabaster fingers grey as she stared at the page. She had compensated for her blurry memory of the original drawing by translating the likeness of figures from her second life to the scene.

Something about the stiff, almost-painfully restrained lines of Darcy’s body was all Edward, the tousled hair too unruly for the image she was recreating. The desperate clenching of his hands emanated angst and inner turmoil like only her brother could.

Lizzie Bennett was blushing, her high cheek bones shaded with the soft edge of the pencil in a flush that spilled down the long, soft line of her neck, her body so graceful in its stillness, its softness, her hair falling in pretty waves around her heart-shaped face, instead of piled upon her head like it had been in the original. Rosalie could not deny the sketch resemble Isabella Swan, even if it was far more flattering than she would ever give the girl credit for. 

Mouth twisting in dislike, she contemplated shredding the drawing. Instead, she laughed to herself - sudden and clear, jarring to her ears given her self-imposed isolation. She supposed there were certain parallels between her brother and his little human pet, in the way he had been rude and standoffish until almost the very moment he proclaimed to love her. If only Bella had had the good sense to reject him then, like Lizzie, and then afterwards had the far better sense to _stay_ far away.

It would have been safer for Bella. It would have been safer for Rosalie’s family. Surely, if Bella had had an inkling of the self-preservation instinct most humans possessed she would have run back to sunny Arizona, and the Cullen’s could have continued their facade in rainy Forks with no human any the wiser... and they would still be with Rosalie.

Instead of throwing the sketch away, she carefully began to print beneath it the missing text, sifting through all the books in her perfect memory to find the words. _When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending herself to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr Darcy..._

She slid the finished page into its spot in the book, leaving it loose - it was too white, too new for her to bind to the old yellowed pages. Besides, something uneasy settled in her stomach at the idea of whitewashing over her old mistakes like that. As though replacing the book’s jagged scar could erase her bad behaviour like tipex over a misspelled word. Lessons had to be learned, Rosalie thoroughly believed. Mistakes couldn’t be undone, and there was always a price to pay. She thought about Royce for a moment, unwillingly, his face flashing to the forefront of her mind as it so often did. She thought about him leering at her, laughing as wept and begged and fought pitifully against his friends. She thought about _him_ crying, pleading mercy of her as though venom wasn’t running through her veins like vengeance. And then she thought about him dead. He had learned his lesson. And he had paid a price, even if it did not scratch the surface of what his crimes had cost her. 

Rosalie shook her head, dispelling the thoughts - she refused to salt the open wound - picking up the book and leaving the workshop, heading back to the house. She entered the kitchen and rummaged through a cupboard. She had seen Esme return to it often while making Bella’s birthday cake before everything went to hell. Sure enough, dry baking ingredients sat gathering dust, as useless as they would have been before the human girl had entered their lives. Almost, at least. Rosalie plucked the bicarbonate of soda from the shelf, opened it, and placed it in a large tupperware - more Bella-related paraphernalia, Esme foisting huge amounts of leftovers on the girl to bring home to Charlie - alongside the copy of Pride and Prejudice. The baking soda would kill the musty smell, further restoring it to Rosalie’s fragile memories. She had a bottle of her mother’s perfume in her bedroom here, stolen when she had returned to Rochester for revenge. Maybe she would mist the pages with that and she might feel closer to how she had then. Alive. Fallible. Human. She sealed the plastic container, and then straightened, confused as a vehicle turned off of the main road, the sound of its obnoxiously loud motor separating from the homogenous roar as it thundered along the private road that led to the Cullen estate. 

It was dark outside, but the lights in the house were all off - Rosalie didn’t need artificial light to see and she wouldn’t waste the electricity - so the house would appear empty to whoever approached; no evidence that one of the Cullen’s had stayed behind. She didn’t need any rumours starting, not if her family were to return as she hoped they would. In less than a year when Bella would leave Forks for college, things could go back to normal.

Bella. It was Bella approaching the house - she recognised now the distinctive, _cacophonous_ groaning of the girl’s enormous truck. But why? There was nothing for her here. She knew that the Cullen’s had left. What did she have to gain from visiting an empty house?

The truck turned the corner into view and Rosalie could see Bella’s face peering out from behind the wheel with crystal clarity before the human would even be able to ascertain the shape of the dark house against the evening shadows. She realised, with some mild surprise, that Bella looked _awful._

She had never been kind in her assessment of the girl. Plain. Goggle-eyed. Bat-faced. The way she looked now was another story; she didn’t merely look unremarkable, she looked _ill._ Her greasy hair lay flat against her head and fell in lank ropes past her shoulders, scraggly ends sorely in need of a cut. Her usually pretty - even Rosalie could concede this - skin had lost its pearlescent, pale translucence and instead looked pallid and grey, her chapped lips offering barely any contrast. The dark, bruised shadows under her eyes were not beautiful as they were on the alabaster skin of her family, the purplish colour somehow grotesquely saturated. And the eyes above them were.... Devoid. Of anything.

Rosalie had previously despised the easy expressiveness of Bella’s face, fluidly changing with her emotions in a way that was so very human. She had never understood Edward’s obsession with not being able to hear her mind, not when every thought spilled right out onto her face like words on a page anyway. The blank mask in front of her now was unsettling in its emptiness, looking more like a cheap mockery of life than the real thing.

The vehicle continued its approach, Bella’s hands clenching the wheel, tension clear in her grip. Her fingernails were chewed to stubs. Abruptly the truck stopped, close enough that Bella could surely see the house now, but not Rosalie inside of it, less tangible than a shadow behind the glass. Rosalie watched as Bella stared up at the house for a long time, with those strange empty eyes.

Would she cry? Rosalie thought she would, the human’s mouth twisting for just a second... but no - instead her hands convulsed against the steering wheel, her face resetting into vacancy. The lights on the truck flashed suddenly, and Rosalie muttered a curse as she rushed out of view of the window. Bella’s head had snapped up, the first sign of vitality she’d shown - maybe she’d seen the glow of the Chevy’s headlamps reflected in Rosalie’s eyes, shining like a cat’s. The energy faded almost instantly, Bella’s shoulders slumping as she failed to detect anything in the darkness.

Rosalie watched impassively as the girl put the truck into drive and retreated from the property, fading away into the night. It was only later, failing to engross herself in a book she had selected at random from Carlisle’s library that a slightly sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she recalled Bella’s unexplained visit.

She had once asked Edward what he thought it would do to Bella when he left her, aiming to hurt him with her words, a cruel twist of a spiteful knife in his ribs. Whatever she had been alluding to then - whatever inevitable heartache she had predicted... it had not been this. 

She slammed the book closed and retreated to her room, lying in bed with her eyes shut as if this time, maybe, she would miraculously fall asleep. She didn’t, of course. She could not sleep, just as she could not stop the haunting image that kept swimming to the forefront of her mind from doing so: Isabella Swan, utterly dead behind the eyes, looking less alive than any vampire she had ever seen.

As the long, empty night broke into day, Rosalie made up her mind.


	3. an attitude, an action, a thought, an intention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which rosalie remembers her fight with her family and has some questions for bella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading & kudos'ing and all that - was not really expecting more than a handful of people to see this rare-pair fic for a 15-yr old franchise but a couple of hundreds of hits later here we are! hope you're enjoying, here is some actual rose/bella interaction for you (over half of the words! they can both actually speak aloud!)
> 
> disclaimery things apply - have not read the books in years, have not checked my own words are remotely coherent etc etc etc

As the long, empty night had broken into day, Rosalie _had_ made up her mind. She had also changed it several times since then, mentally weighing up her options and her motives and her objections until they became meaningless, as all pro-con lists eventually do.

She had reasons to go see the girl - she wanted to know about the La Push wolves, most importantly. She wanted to know why Bella had visited the house yesterday. And she could admit that she was curious about how ghoulish she had looked. Just curious. Not concerned, as the rest of her family would be were they to see Bella like that. 

Her biggest hold-up was that she owed Bella Swan _nothing_ , and she knew some explanation of her presence in Forks would need to be given if she were to speak to her. She’d lie, of course, but either way she abhorred the concept of having to explain herself to anyone, let alone the human who seemed set on ruining her afterlife.

  
Rosalie was aware of her own fierce pride, how it so often made her her own worst enemy, how often her actions aligned to protect her hubris over her happiness. Case in point: her month long solitude.

* * *

_(“Why should we uproot our lives again? If she dies, she dies. It’s her own stupid fault for dating a boy who wants to eat her." Rosalie spat, words deliberately venomous. Her words shot to kill when she was mad._

_“Rosalie!” That was Esme, aghast. Edward’s jaw clenched, a thin growl escaping from between his teeth._

_“I’m sorry that none of you want to hear it, but it’s the truth.” She said, not sorry at all. “It wouldn’t be the first slip one of us has had.” A smug note crept into her tone at that. She had never slipped. Jasper curled up on himself slightly, slipping impossibly further into the corner of the room. She might have felt guilty had she not been so incensed._

_“This is different.” Carlisle. “You know that.”_

_“It’s only different because it’s Edward.” She hated how bitter she sounded. “The prodigal son gets whatever he wants. What about what_ I _want?”_

_“Stay here then!” Edward hissed. “You’re a big girl. Make your own choices.”_

_Rosalie froze. She had picked this fight to be petty. She was irritated, and nothing she had said was false, but her words were ultimately toothless. Yes, she was glad to be free of high school, but she could pose as older wherever they ended up. It’s not like she was particularly attached to Forks - she hadn’t even been living there for months. She and Emmett had returned from the Congo only days ago._

_Edward, the insufferable eavesdropper that he was, knew all of this. And now he was calling her bluff, in front of everyone._

_She could not, would not let him win._

_Alice, who had been utterly silent until that moment, gasped before Rosalie was even sure of her decision. “Rose - you can’t!”_

_“Like hell I can’t.” She folded her arms across her chest, resolute. “I’m not leaving. Emmett?”_

_Emmett, her partner in all things, didn’t look at her. “Rose, I think we should go. We can be older, get married again, it’s been a while since we honeymooned in Europe-”_

_“Emmett...” Rosalie repeated, more hesitant._

_“He’ll come with us.” Alice whispered, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance. “Whatever you choose.”_

_Emmett looked at her, pleading, but she couldn’t miss the touch of reproach in his gaze. She felt a pit form in her stomach._

“ _I see.” Rosalie said. And then she turned on her heel, and left.)_

* * *

This blow to her pride, having to turn to a human she disliked for information, was more acceptable. There would be no witnesses, or none that mattered to her, and she could soothe her own displeasure with the knowledge that she was getting something she wanted from it. So then - she would go.

It was a weekend, so no concern of Bella being at school... and from the way she had looked yesterday, Rosalie had a feeling that Bella wasn’t living the life of a social butterfly. She’d likely be home. The girl’s father was a potential issue. She didn’t want the fact that she was in Forks to spread around the small town, and as taciturn as Charlie Swan seemed to be from what she knew of him, she’d rather avoid the small talk. The same problem with transport - every kid in town knew her red BMW by sight, and the other cars in her garage were no less conspicuous. She decided to run, take the same route as she had the other day when she found the book. It wouldn’t take long, and she could ascertain if anyone but Bella was in the house from a distance before she risked being seen.

It didn’t take her long until she neared the woodland boundary that backed onto the Swan’s back garden. The smell of dog had gone stale in the few days since she’d gone hunting; no mutts in this part of the wood today. The scent of deer was very fresh here, close as it was to the forest’s fringe. Rosalie tasted venom; she was by no means ravenous, her eyes still unambiguously golden, but she was peckish. Drying out the book had been a slow process, with each page taking considerable time to totally dessicate. She ignored her hunting sense and relaxed the predatory stance she’d automatically tensed into at the smell of the animal’s blood. It would be a bad idea to be so hypersensitive when conversing with a human that she had no intention of killing. As much as Rosalie disliked Bella, resented her for her unforgivably blase stance towards the value of humanity, she did not wish her active harm. She had gotten over the “let’s kill Bella” plan soon after actually meeting her, realising Edward was not only happy but also seemed unlikely to murder her in the middle of his biology classroom. She hadn’t been on board with the suicidal protection squad mission when the hunter, James, had targeted the girl - better to let her die quickly than live in fear, Rosalie thought - but that had worked itself out in the end, even if her refusal to help had upset her family. Bella’s imminent death didn’t seem inevitable to her now. She had no justification, and Rosalie had never killed anyone without burning reason. 

As she approached the forest edge, she listened intently - one slow heartbeat. She recognised it as Bella’s. Home alone, then. Good

There was a tree underneath the window of what must be Bella’s bedroom, and she scaled it with ease, lingering for just a fraction of a second. It was gone noon but Bella lay in bed, looking as though she was yet to move today. She wasn’t asleep. Her eyes were open, gazing blankly up at a spot of chipped paint on the ceiling. She looked as awful close up as from a distance. Rosalie swung through the open window - she wasn’t going to hang about in a tree, staring for hours. Who was she? Edward?

“Hello, Bella.” She said, her own voice strange to her - she hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since her fight with her family.

Bella didn’t move, apart from her eyes which drifted over to Rosalie and then back to the spot on the ceiling. “I really am going crazy,” she mumbled. 

Rosalie snorted, annoyed. “You aren’t hallucinating.” She took an eraser from the desk next to her and threw it at the centre of Bella’s forehead. “See?”

Bella sat up faster than Rosalie knew humans could move. “You’re back? Edward, is he-? _”_ Blood instantly suffused through the human’s face and neck, the flush utterly revitalising her sickly, pallid complexion.

“No,” Rosalie said, in a bored voice. _How predictable._ “And no. How impolite by the way - I’m fine, thanks for asking, nice to see you too.”

Bella had slumped back into her pillow the moment she said no, her vigour receding as quickly as it arrived. She didn’t rise to Rosalie’s jibes. “Oh.” Bella paused for a moment, expressionless face tilted back to the ceiling. “Why are you here?” she said, like an afterthought, like she couldn’t care less either way.

Rosalie was somewhat taken aback - this same girl was inquisitive to a fault, tuned into what was odd about the Cullens and questioned and researched and poked the bear until she stumbled onto the truth. And now she just... didn’t give a damn as to why her ex-boyfriend’s vampire sister would climb through her bedroom window.

“Are you okay?” She said automatically, taking a half-step towards the bed, before reminding herself she didn’t care. Bella didn’t respond. “Forget I asked, I’m not interested. I want to know what you were doing at the house yesterday, and what you know about the Quileutes.”

“You saw me.” Bella blinked slowly, still not looking at her. “I saw... something but thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again. Two hallucinations debunked. I guess that’s something.”

Rosalie’s eyes narrowed, irritated by the intense ennui that radiated from Bella and her senseless non-answer . “I asked you a question.”

“You told me to forget you asked. How impolite, by the way.” Bella echoed Rosalie’s chide. She was slightly surprised by the bold comeback; Bella had always been stuttering and nervous around Rosalie. She must be too far into this... slump, this depression - could this really have been wrought by her family’s departure? - to feel that usual fear.

Rosalie glowered, partly annoyed at Bella, but mostly annoyed at herself as she felt herself growing concerned. She owed Bella nothing, she reminded herself. “Not that. About last night, and the Quileutes.”

“Those weren’t questions.” Bella observed, “More like demands. Besides, I asked you first. About what you’re doing here.”  
  


“I told you, I want to know-”

“Not _here_ here. In Forks. Without Edward. Are the other’s back? Alice?” The human did look at her now, face still impassive but something a bit more... present in her eyes, just a tiny hint of their usual expressiveness.

“I came back to fetch something from the house,” Rosalie lied. “And if anyone asks I was never here. Now. Why were you there?”

Bella flexed her hands, intently focused on the ragged edges of her finger nails. “I wanted to make sure it was real. The pictures in my scrapbook are all gone - the CD he made me. I don’t know. I told you.” Her voice animated for the first time, but growing assuredly more agitated, like a thunderstorm brewing. “I think I’m going crazy,” Bella whispered. “Then the other day I thought I saw a giant _wolf_ behind my house and I dropped my book and when I went back to look it was _gone_ and I just feel so... so...” 

Rosalie stepped back in alarm as Bella started sobbing, a keening, ugly sound. She almost instantly looked prettier for the colour than flooded her face, Rosalie absently noticed as she tried to decide what to do. The sound was horrendous, but Bella was not an ugly-crier, the way Rosalie had been as a human. Rosalie stood, frozen, waiting for the girl to cry herself out - surely she couldn’t keep this up, her throat must be sore and her eyes dry? - but she showed no signs that she would. Rosalie moved closer, hesitantly wrapping a cool hand around Bella’s wrist and pulling the girl’s hand from her face.

“You’re not crazy,” she said, softly as she could. “It was real. We’re real.” She hesitated a moment before adding: “And you probably did see a giant wolf.” 

Bella looked up at her, eyes flowing with tears and confusion. She reached out to touch Rosalie’s face with her free hand, as if to prove for herself that she was not hallucinating. 

Rosalie almost pulled away in shock as the palm of Bella’s hands flattened firmly against her face. The touch was so warm, so soft... Rosalie could feel the hot pulse in Bella’s wrist but it did not make her thirst. It made her ache. How long since she had touched a human? Not since she had killed Royce, and that hardly counted. How long since a human had touched _her_? Never, in this life.

Rosalie had been this once - warm, and vital, and lovely. Bella’s touch was a stark reminder of what she was now. She wondered what she felt like to Bella. Other vampires felt temperate and velveteen to her, but to a human she must be stone-hard and ice-cold. The skin of her cheek did not give way at all against the gentle press of Bella’s fingertips.

“Sorry.” Bella mumbled, withdrawing her hand as she noted Rosalie’s frozen expression. Rosalie almost growled - the loss of the warmth felt like her mother pulling her bedsheets away from her on a lazy winter morning. Another long-forgotten memory. Instead she released her grip on Bella’s wrist and stepped away, the human’s tears receding to scattered hiccups.

“It’s okay.” Rosalie muttered back, although it had been more than that. “I should go.”

“No, I didn’t answer your question. About the Quileutes.” Rosalie shrugged - she inadvertently had. The wolves were back, and Bella knew almost nothing of them. “I don’t know what exactly you want to know but... My friend Jacob says things are tense down on the reservation. Something about some of the boys forming a gang? I’ve only spoken to him on the phone. He’s been asking to hang out but I-” she gestured at herself, as if her appearance explained everything. “Haven’t felt like socialising lately. I could find out more, if you wanted.”

“No, I’ll be leaving Forks again soon. It’s nothing.” She lied, moving towards the window. Another tug of concern pulled at her, the girl’s sobs still ringing in her ears, her face still warm where Bella had reached so desperately for her. “You should spend some time with your friend. Though perhaps not down at La Push.”

Bella frowned, clearly confused as to why Rosalie would be offering her friendship advice. “Can I ask where you’re going when you leave?”

“No.” Rosalie said. She slipped out of the window and into the woods, just as Chief Swan’s keys rattled in the lock of the front door, leaving Bella no opportunity to call after her.


	4. it is the heart that does the giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rosalie's visit, Bella feels a little bit more alive. Maybe it's time for her to rejoin the world of the living (although, why does it feel so good to risk leaving it?)
> 
> aka
> 
> bella remembers she has friends, hears a familiar voice, and receives a gift

Bella stared at the window for a long time, unsure as to whether she had just had her hallucinations refuted or if they were dramatically escalating. Even before the Cullens left, Rosalie was rarely willingly in Bella’s presence, and never without cajoling from her family - Emmett especially.  _ Maybe  _ she’d believe it if the blonde had shown up, glowered at her, made some vague but sincere threats about Bella trespassing on what was apparently still Cullen land. Instead, Rosalie had comforted her, wrapped her cool hand around Bella’s wrist. Let Bella touch her impossibly beautiful face, press her palm against it, an act far too intimate given Rosalie’s frosty-to-openly-hostile feelings towards her. All that with no angry recourse, just a hurried exit and a suggestion that she... hang out with Jacob Black?

Bella might have assumed she’d drifted back to sleep and the whole thing was a dream, mundane enough compared to her recent, grueling nightmares that it spilled seamlessly into the haze of her waking life. She might have, were it not for the pink eraser that had spilled into her lap when she sat up. Rosalie had been here.

Anger cut through her confusion, swift and brutal in its clarity. She had thought it so cruel, Edward vanishing all traces of him from her life - the pictures, the CD, even the pretty blue prom dress that reminded her as much as Alice as of him. To deny her the memories of the happiest part of her life, to try and make her forget that  _ he  _ existed, as if she ever could, as if she hadn’t been irreversibly changed by knowing and loving him. Yet perhaps it was even crueler of Rosalie to cut through the haze that she had carefully cultivated, to shatter the buffer that shielded Bella from the pain that she had been so sure would consume her that first day. The way Edward had abandoned her was way past the line of her “worst-case that i could possibly live through” scenario, and yet here she was. A little over a month later and still alive thanks to her defensive numbness. It only receded at night when the nightmares would strike, barely affording her any rest and making her appearance increasingly ghoulish. But still, not feeling anything allowed her to function adequately: her grades had never been better with all the studying she filled her empty hours with, she cooked for Charlie most nights, she was holding down her job at Newton’s and had even perfected a vacant customer-service smile after Mrs. Newton had hesitantly raised concerns over Bella’s perpetual gloominess. Maybe her friends avoided looking her directly in the eyes anymore, Angela’s smile growing more worried and Jessica’s more cold, hurt by the fact that she had been freezing them out. It was not intentional; Bella had blocked out the pain, but the affection she held for her friends and the way she knew she had enjoyed spending time with them before seemed to be obscured by the same barrier. Maybe she knew Charlie worried, always nervously twitching his moustache at her over dinner like he wanted to say something (he never did). But she was coping, and that’s what mattered, right?

And yet Rosalie, who had never afforded her any kindness, and whose blatant dislike had been the only blemish on her relationship with the Cullens (except the whole “being hunted” thing, which Bella insisted had not been their fault), had rocked up and broken her down in minutes. She hadn’t cried like that since day three. And then she had the gall to be kind. That one gesture was enough to recode all of the memories Bella had of the other girl into something softer, now that she knew Rosalie was capable of it.  _ Too forgiving, _ Renee had always told her, after her mother’s flightiness had yet again disrupted Bella’s childhood in one way or another - they were moving, she forgot to pick her from school, waking up to no hot water because Renee had forgotten to pay a bill again.  _ I wish you would get angry at me, Bella. It would be healthy.  _ Of course, Bella did not get angry; it was not in her nature to hold grudges, and besides, it wasn’t only her. Nobody could ever seem to stay angry at Bella’s mother for long.

So here she was, the only sore-spot she had felt regarding the Cullen’s before they moved away soothed, and once again viscerally hurt by their absence. She almost started sobbing again. She felt that if she only let go of the last vestiges of her crumbling walls, she could have a truly cathartic, cleansing, _exhausting_ cry, the kind that would send her into a deep and perfectly dreamless sleep immediately after. Before she could, the alarm on her phone went - she needed to get ready for work. She sighed, and got up, going through the motions as she did every day. Mostly, at least: she was feeling strangely alert - she was desperately sad, but the pain had a keen edge to it that was almost energising, and she found herself taking extra steps that she had not been bothering with. Her pajamas were thrown into her hamper instead of strewn on the floor. She conditioned her hair, dry from weeks of only shampooing, and blow-dried it so it fell in soft waves instead of lying flat, equal parts lank and frizzy. A bowl of cereal was still all she could be bothered with for lunch, but she added some fruit and drizzled maple syrup in a rich golden zigzag against the white of the milk. She felt like enjoying her food, not just swallowing it down like dirt.

Bella got into her truck and turned on the radio for the first time in a month, the brand new stereo the only tangible reminder she’d had left of Edward and his family, too painful to touch. She had not been listening to much music anyway: it crept under her skin and forced her to feel things that she had artfully buried. Now that those feelings had been brought to the surface by Rosalie’s appearance, she felt too raw to listen, so she tuned the channel to some inane talk radio show. The host was quizzing some phone-in guests down a crackly line. She played along with the game, imagining she might feel a satisfied thrill at getting the questions right - the way she used to, when she would turn with a grin to Edward. There was rarely a question he couldn’t answer - it had happened maybe twice in all of the many trivia programmes they had listened to on long drives or caught on the TV with Charlie. But he would always look proud of her, in awe even; she should have felt patronised, but he was so sincere that she never did. She felt her energy dip at the memory, and found herself wanting to turn the truck back around and crawl into bed. Instead, she switched the radio off. Despite the acute sorrow that seeing Rosalie had magnified, she was feeling strangely okay within herself, invigorated despite her chronic difficulty sleeping; she wanted to hold onto that, and so she would keep driving in silence.

She pulled into the parking lot at Newton’s Sporting Goods, and angled the rear view mirror so she could see herself in it, making sure her work-mandated ponytail was perfectly tidy. For the first time in weeks she felt something less than disgust at her reflection. Crying earlier had stained her cheeks pink in a way that had yet to recede; it had also left her eyes slightly puffy, but at least this made them appear less sunken against the bruise-like shadows beneath. Her hair actually looked nice, shiny and neatly pulled back. She by no means looked good, Bella thought. But at least she looked alive. She tested her customer-service smile, and grimaced as her chapped lips threatened to split again. She pulled a little tin of vaseline from the glove compartment, daubed some on her lips and slipped the flat container into her back pocket. It felt good - these little things she had been neglecting. Doing more than the absolute bare minimum, and feeling more human for it. Instead of letting herself get soaked through and miserable in the short walk to the door, she reached for the umbrella she had mostly not been bothering with.

Bella climbed down from her truck and went through the delivery goods entrance to the store. Propping her still-open umbrella up to dry, she left her wallet, phone and keys in her staff locker and clocked in. She was five minutes early, so instead of heading to stock take as was normally her first task on her Sunday afternoon shift, she decided to say hi to Mike, who was finishing ringing up an order for one of the few people in the largely empty shop. The weather was particularly bad this weekend, lashing down with furor, so there were fewer hikers visiting the area and it seemed nobody local was motivated to plan their next camping trip. A woman was helping her kid try on soccer boots for fit, an overly sinewy man was studying the long-distance running gear, and a couple of Bear Grylls wannabes debated the relative merits of different bear sprays.

“Hi Mike.” Bella said with a little wave after the customer he was serving left. “This place is looking lively.”

Mike did a double take, as if he was surprised Bella was talking to him - she talked with him all the time! He was her supervisor. She checked in with him multiple times a shift. She supposed small talk wasn’t exactly the same as work chat but they were friends, right? Had she really gotten so withdrawn that a simple greeting could throw ever-social Mike for a loop?

He recovered quickly, brightening. “Hi Bella. You’re looking... well today?” His voice tilted upwards at the end, like he was worried his word choice would offend her even as he said it. “I mean. Not that you normally look bad. I just... I mean-”

Bella smiled, and laughed quietly, letting him off the hook. “I feel well today.” It was true, in some respects. Not emotionally, but physically, at least. More alert, not dragging her feet.

He grinned back, looking thrilled that she was engaging with him. “I’m glad to hear that - and  _ ha ha _ by the way,” he said gesturing at the empty store. “I missed your constant sarcasm. It’s been dead  _ aaaaaalllll  _ day. I’m so bored.” He drawled, slamming his forehead against the check-out counter dramatically. “If you want to hang here with me for a bit before you go check the back, then that’s fine - I doubt we’ll get busy later, so there’ll be time.”

Bella hesitated. She still didn’t really feel like chatting, a sense of dread filling her at the thought, but Mike sounded so hopeful. It’d be like kicking a puppy to say no. Besides, he would probably talk at her and she could just make encouraging sounds to make him feel listened to. No wonder he and Jess had broken up. With the two of them trying to hold a conversation there’d be no air left in the room. “Sure.” She said, and pulled up a stool.

Bella nodded in the right places as Mike rattled away at her, clearly ecstatic to have his colleague back to being his work-friend, until the two hikers approached the check-out carrying a ton of equipment. Mike eyed their laden-down arms, and smiled, even more friendly than usual.

“Looks like you guys have quite the trip planned - inspired by the weather?” He joked. Bella noted that the stuff they were carrying was at the higher end of the range - either these guys knew what they were doing and were going for a full upgrade of their gear, or they were rich amateurs with more money than sense.

One of the men cracked a half-smile, the other remaining obstinately glum. “ Cutting our trip short actually - not the weather. This one thought he saw a grizzly and freaked.” The first one said, nudging his friend. “Wouldn’t even go back to the food-site for our cooking gear in case it had been lured over there.”

“It wasn’t a grizzly. It was black. It was just... huge - bigger than a grizzly even.” The other one muttered, sounding embarrassed but resolute. “I wouldn’t normally abandon anything in the woods. I  _ love _ nature, man. But I wasn’t gonna mess with this thing.”

Bella’s thought she saw a hint of skepticism creep over Mike’s expression, but his professional smile did not waver. “We haven’t had any reports of black bears around here for a while, but they do venture into the area occasionally. Where were you camping? I’ll call a report in - and did you see our new range of bear-proof food vaults, they’re top of the line and guaranteed for...”

Bella zoned out as Mike made the sale, shooting him a quick smile as she drifted out to the stockroom to do her weekly supply log. She thought of the camper’s description - an animal, black and huge. Kind of like the wolf she had hallucinated - or hadn’t hallucinated, according to Rosalie - a few days ago. That had been impossibly big for a wolf, as big as a car. Was some new weird supernatural thing going on in Forks? The vampires leave and some monstrously huge animal decides to prowl the woods and scare off campers (and teenage girls, just trying to find a peaceful spot to read in the woods behind their house, away from the concerned eyes of her father).

She shrugged, not having any way to gain answers and struggling to feel even a trace of the burning curiosity that she’s sure would have consumed her in the past, and got to work at systematically checking the stock. Mike sent her home when she was finished, planning to lock up early with how empty the store had been all day.

Her afternoon unexpectedly free, she thought about how happy Mike had been just to chat at her, and felt a twinge of guilt. While she hadn’t dropped her friends upon getting a boyfriend, Edward had certainly monopolised most of her time over summer, and Alice a good chunk of the rest of it - and when the Cullens left, she froze everyone out and spent even less time with them than before. Bella still wanted to be alone, wanted to allow her attention to focus on the burning pain in her chest for once, nurse it until she felt it burn through her cathartically, but she felt capable of  _ doing things  _ today. That hadn’t happened in a while, and she didn’t know if it would again - she felt obliged to at least offer an olive branch to her school friends.

_ Hey. Would you guys like to go to the movies this evening?  _ Bella texted Angela and Jess. Immediately three typing dots appeared next to Jessica’s name, then vanished, then appeared, this repeating until they went away completely. Bella sighed, slipping her phone into her pocket and putting her truck into drive to head home.

When she pulled into the drive, she checked her phone again just as a text from Angela came through. Angela, ever quiet in person, always seemed to text in paragraphs.

_ Would love to, Bella! :) <3 Can’t believe how long it’s been since we hung out. Are you coming Jess? My brother has the car today and Mom thinks Bella’s truck is a death trap so can you drive?  _

A moment later:  _ Oh! What do you guys want to go see? _

__

Jessica seemed to be inclined to reply to Angela, if not Bella, giving one word answers to each of her questions:  _ sure. fine. whatever.  _

Bella was sure the girl’s reticence was aimed at her rather than Angela, but at least Jess had agreed.  _ I don’t mind if anyone has a preference.  _ She texted back, and then added:  _ I’d rather not romance if that’s okay.  _

Jess replied again quickly - clearly she did have a preference, despite her blasé “whatever”.  _ Idk but there’s a zombie film my brother said was kinda gd ? if u want _

Angela agreed, and Bella did too, even if she’d never much enjoyed scary movies. It couldn’t be much worse than being tracked across the country by a vampire set on torturously murdering her.

Charlie had been concerned when he’d gotten home and she had been there instead of work as he expected, but clearly grew quietly thrilled when she said she was going to a movie in Port Angeles and wouldn’t be home for dinner. “That’s absolutely fine, Bells,” he told her, his gruff voice thick with relief. “You have fun now. I can fend for myself tonight.”

Jess picked her up, picking Bella up second despite her home being on the way to Angela’s, clearly avoiding being in the car alone with her. It was frosty at first, Jess uncharacteristically taciturn while Angela tried to clear the air. Bella eventually asked about boys, and Jess perked up, eager to spill the details on her dates with Connor and Eric Yorkie, Angela sweetly talking about how much she loved being with Ben. By the time they reached the movie theatre things almost felt normal. Bella bought the tickets as a thank you for coming out with her tonight, and an apology for dropping off the grid and the last vestiges of Jessica’s iciness fell away. “That’s okay, Bella. I would be devastated too if  _ Edward Cullen  _ had broken up with me.” She sighed dreamily, completely unaware of the way all the air was sucked out of Bella’s lungs at the sound of his name. She didn’t think Jessica had meant to be malicious, but the lack of tact would have been comical had Bella not felt like she was suffocating, her chest burning. 

Angela, for her part, looked horrified. “Did you wanna grab some popcorn, Jess? Me and Bella will save seats.” Jess looked ready to protest, but Angela pulled Bella away before she could, so she shrugged and joined the back of the line. “Sorry that she said that.” Angela whispered to Bella, and squeezed her hand as they checked their tickets and headed for screen 5.

Bella had remembered how to breathe by the time the film started, only to have the wind knocked out of her instantly as the first scene opened and a young couple strolled down a beach at sunset, telling each other sweet nothings, and generally being insufferable in love. Tuning out their words, Bella instead focused in on the lead actress' face, examining it in forensic detail like she had taken to doing with the chipped paint on her ceiling. She was very beautiful, she realised, even for a Hollywood star. Her hair fell in blonde Farah Fawcett curls, her strong features - sharp brow, strong nose, full mouth - were softened by her heart-shaped face and the gentleness in her wide eyes as she looked at her on-screen partner. The latter expression almost reminded her of the way Rosalie had met her gaze earlier, softly assuring her that she was not in fact crazy, and Bella found herself wondering if this is what Rosalie had looked like in life; the actress paled in comparison to Rosalie, every human did, but Bella could not imagine the vampire as having ever been anything less than breathtaking.

Eventually, the merciless killing started as zombies flooded the screen, and Bella could relax for the thoroughly unromantic remainder of the film, her breathing quiet and even as Angela and Jessica screamed on either side of her.

Ben picked up Angela from the cinema so they could go to dinner together, and Jessica asserted her desire for McDonald’s so she and Bella started the short walk to the nearest one instead of heading back to the car. It took them down an unlit row of closed up shops, and Jessica was moving briskly, wary as all girls are taught to be in the dark. Bella glimpsed the face of a man she thought she recognised in the smoking area of some dive-bar, the only open place on the street, and her heart suddenly beat horribly in her mouth - of all the people to run into in Port Angeles, surely not this man - surely not  _ twice.  _ And yet something drew her towards him, adrenaline pulsing in her veins, making her feel so  _ alive _ , and she crossed the road to get a closer-look, Jessica trailing after her, confusedly protesting, clearly nervous. 

“Bella, what are you doing?” Jess hissed, grabbing Bella’s wrist nervously and attempting to pull her away as she caught up with her halfway across the wide street. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Go eat - I’ll catch up. I think I know those guys.” Bella said, eyes fixed on the glowing facade of the bar. She shook her arm free of Jess, who let her go but did not move, staring after her as she drifted towards the men leaning against the wall. 

_ “Stop it Bella! Get away from them right now.”  _ Bella heard a voice, furious but clear as a bell and soft as velvet - not Jessica. She’d recognise that perfect, melodious voice anywhere. Edward. She looked around wildly, half-expecting to see him besides her, but the street was empty except for Jess, clearly worried, and then men watching her with curiosity as she approached them.

Don’t do anything reckless, Edward had told her. She had vowed she would not - and now his voice was that of her conscience; how unfair of him, to ask her to make promises and then break all of his. 

She drew close to the bar, and the light was strong enough now to see that these men were not those who she had run into in a similar dark Port Angeles street, just of a similar build. “Can I buy you a drink?” One said, eyeing her. She said nothing, just turned on her heel as the adrenaline faded and returned to Jessica’s side.

“Not who I thought they were.” She said, and Jessica said nothing, just kept frowning and picked up her pace as they continued their trip for food. She was quiet the whole time they ate, avoiding conversation and only making eye contact with their food, even as Bella tried harder than was in her nature to fill the silence. Bella was trying to make amends this evening, and her risky little stunt might have set that back. She tried to resist thinking of how she had heard Edward, crystal clear, and of how she might do so again - was it the act of recklessness, that had had adrenaline burning through her veins, some hormone-driven hallucination? It was difficult, especially on the car journey back; Jess had turned up the music too loud to talk, clearly still upset. They pulled up at Bella’s house.

“Wait.” Jessica said, as Bella went to open the door. “I was really afraid back there, Bella. Everyone knows that that street isn’t safe, that that bar is  _ worse _ , and you put me in a bad situation.”

Bella winced. “Jess, I’m sorry-”   
  


“I know you’re going through a hard time right now. But you haven’t been a good friend at  _ all  _ lately...” she sighed. “I’ve missed you, and I really hope you’re okay or that you’re at least getting there. But you can’t  _ do _ things like that. It wasn’t safe, for either of us. Anyway. Goodnight. See you in Trig, I guess.”

Bella didn’t know what to say. “I wasn’t thinking, and I’m so sorry for putting you in a position where you were frightened -”

“I know you weren’t thinking. That’s why it scared me so much. It’s like you didn’t care at all that you were putting yourself in danger... and you’ve been so depressed lately... ” 

Bella read the uncomfortable, unasked question in the awkward twist of Jess’ hand, the cautious compassion in her eyes. “I’m not trying to get myself killed, Jess. And I’m not planning to do anything stupid, I swear.” She had Charlie to look after, her mom back in Arizona. She could never do that to them. On a rare instinct, she reached out to hug Jessica, who resisted only a moment before returning the gesture.

“As long as you’re sure - we’re all here for you if you need.” Jess said, before scrunching her nose. “I mean, except like, maybe Lauren. But even she’d probably be less mean.”

Bella laughed, and reached for the car door. “Goodnight Jess. Thanks for tonight.”

As she entered the house, Charlie looked up from the TV. “Had a good night, Bells?” She thought of hearing Edward’s voice, perfect and irate, for the first time in over a month and nodded, settling down beside him to catch the late night news before she headed for bed. She noted his small, pleased smile as he patted her knee, and vowed to do better than she had been doing, for Charlie if nothing else. Time to rejoin the world.

The next morning, Bella was shocked to find she had slept through the night without a single dream, her rest unbroken until light filtered through her curtains. School was harder that day, now that she was feeling less numb, the barrier to her feelings more like a mere veil, but also... kind of nice. She was painfully aware that Edward and Alice were missing from the table, but she was also able to keep up with the banter, the jokes, the flirting that the read of her friends bandied about carelessly and the deliberacy with which most of them included her now that she seemed open to it. Even Jess seemed to have mostly forgiven her for the night before. She remembered how much she liked them.

She took a detour on the drive home, remembering how much she had come to appreciate the lush, mysterious greenery of Forks. It was hard to believe she used to find it suffocating. Bella continued to aimlessly meander until as soggy cardboard sign caught her eye, the edges of the letters ragged from running ink but still legible: 

**_FOR SALE, AS IS._ **

Two dilapidated motorcycles sat in the driveway next to the notice - the Marks house, Bella thought - and something about them instantly appealed to Bella, the blood in her veins pumping faster, the spiking rush of adrenaline. And that was at the sight of them alone. Without thinking, she pulled over and went to knock on the door, ignoring the twinge of guilt she felt remembering her promises to Charlie to never ever even  _ look  _ at a motorbike with the intent of getting on one. But she had always been a safe driver, and she just wanted to live a little, feel the adrenaline. She was 18 - it was time for her to do something reckless. 

“Hii - Bella Swan, right?” The boy who opened the door was fourteen or fifteen - Bella didn’t know his name, but his brother Jamie was in her year. 

“Yeah. How much for one of the motorbikes?”

“Oh, um. They don’t work, you know. They’re pretty much garbage.”

“How much?” Bella pressed.

“Uh, if you really want one, I guess you can just have it? They’ll be picked up with the trash tomorrow anyway.”

“They’re free? Are you sure?”

“You wanna check with Mom? I’m pretty sure she’ll just be glad to see the back of them, but I can go get her if you want.”

“No, it’s okay. I only need one though.” Bella said. All the adults in this town knew each other and she didn’t want word getting to her dad about this.

The kid eyed the large bed of her truck. “I mean, if you’ve got the room you should just take both. Maybe some of the parts will be salvageable? If you know anyone who could fix them, I mean. If you took them to the autoshop, repairing them would cost more than they did brand new.”

“I have a friend who builds cars.” Bella replied, thinking of Jacob Black, and then Rosalie’s strange suggestion that she spend some time with him. She would of course, ignore the part about avoiding La Push. She could hardly keep the bikes at Charlie’s, and she really didn’t put much stock in the Quileute-Cullen feud; the vampires weren’t a threat to the tribe, and how could its people possibly be a threat to the vampires? 

“Cool, okay. I’ll give you a hand with them - they’re heavy.” The Marks kid helped her load the rusted bikes into her truck, and then Bella drove off vaguely in the direction of the reservation, before realising she couldn’t really remember the way. She parked up at the side of a quiet road, and called Jacob Black, who answered so quickly that his eager greeting made her jump.

_ “Hey, Bella! What’s up?” _

“Hi Jacob - I was on my way to come see you but I couldn’t remember the way. I’m parked up around the corner from that butcher’s with the weird pig sculpture outside, do you know it?”   
  


_ “You’re coming to see me?”  _ His voice was tinny through the speaker of her cheap phone, but sounded delighted. There was a murmured voice in the background, then laughter, and then what sounded like a scuffle.

“Are you with friends? I can come another time.” Bella asked, suddenly anxious about where she would hide the bikes from Charlie if she couldn’t get them to Jacob today.

“ _ No way, come over - the guys are just leaving.”  _ Muffled groans echoed down the line.

“Really, it’s no bother-”

“ _ Really, Bella. I’d love to see you. Please come.”  _ His voice was so openly warm that Bella couldn’t help but smile. She realised she had missed her friend.  _ “I see these losers every day - hey!-” _

The line cut off then, but Jacob called back a moment later, the background of the call much quieter. He gave her directions, once again told her how excited he was to see her, and then hung up again. Bella set out, feeling more cheerful than she had since maybe the morning of her birthday, when things had all started going wrong.

When she arrived, Jacob was shoving at two other boys who were stubbornly lurking at the end of his path, clearly ushering them away.

“Hi Jake. Ashamed to be seen with me?” Bella called out of the window of her truck. 

“Hardly!” Jacob grinned, wide and friendly and honest. His face was always so open. “These guys wanted to meet you, but I don’t want them to scare you off.”

Bella looked at the other boys and smiled, feeling shy, as she climbed out of the truck. “Any friend of Jacob’s is a friend of mine.” She said, more confidently than she felt.

The shortier, brawnier one shook her hand and she tried not to laugh as he ostentatiously flexed his arm. “Quil - a pleasure to meet you.”

The other one waved. “Hi, I’m Embry.” Bella greeted them back. Embry was taller, but not as tall as Jacob - whom she suddenly realised was several inches taller than she remembered.

“Christ, Jake, are you ever going to stop growing?”

“Six five, baby.” He recited, smug. “Hey, what’s in the truck?”

“A project for you, I-”

She was interrupted by Billy Black calling from the house. “Bella Swan, is that you?” She smiled apologetically at the three boys and headed to the house to say hi to Jacob’s father while he shooed his friends away, successfully this time.

“Hi Billy. How are you?”

“I’m just fine, Bella.” He certainly looked better than the last time she had seen him, his face constantly drawn in concern at the company she chose to keep. “How are you? Charlie’s been worried about you lately, but you look well.” He paused for a moment. “You haven’t heard from your friends at all? You know who I mean.”

Bella almost choked at the unfair question, that he thought he had a right to question her over it. Instead, she remained composed, digging her nails into the palm of her hand. Billy was afraid of the Cullen’s and afraid  _ for  _ her. His prying felt cruel - the reminder that she had not heard from her ‘friends’ - but it was well intentioned. “No.” She said coolly. It wasn’t even a lie, really. Rosalie was the only member of the family with whom she had not been on good terms; however weirdly kind she had been the day before, Rosalie was by no definition her friend.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the old man smiled. He glanced over her shoulder, and she turned to see Jacob glowering at his dad. “I’ll let you two kids hang out.”

“I think we were going to hang out in Jacob’s shed - I just need to grab something from my truck.” Bella said. The boy masked his surprise at this plan that was new to him, and led the way.

“So this project...” Jacob’s mischievous smile spilt over his face like a ray of sunshine. “I’m assuming it’s not one to tell the dads?”

“No,” Bella agreed. “So, I got my hands on a couple of motorcycles earlier... They’re in really bad shape but I thought maybe we could fix them up. Or like. You could fix them up, and I will pay you for your time and for the parts. And you can totally have one of the bikes if we get them running.”

“One condition.”

“Sure.”   
  


“You hang out with me every so often while I work on them?” It was a statement, but Jacob’s voice morphed into a hopeful question. Bella laughed. That was all? Gladly. She’d really forgotten how much she loved spending time with Jacob - there was something about him that put her at ease in a way she so rarely had been in her life.

“That was always gonna be the case, Black.” She assured him. His face glowed, and he stuck out his hand.

“We have a deal, Swan.”

The next few weeks passed with Bella spending most of her free time at the reservation, rebuilding her school friendships over lunch and with Mike at work. She felt like she was slowly coming alive again, especially as the bikes began to resemble machines that might actually work. When she was looking at them, she could almost hear Edward’s disapproval. It was thrilling. She felt spiteful, wanting to break her promise to him. She felt hopeful, part of her convinced that if she did something wholly stupid, reckless - as Charlie had insisted to her her whole life that motorcycles were - that she would hear his voice again.

Bella and Jacob were in her truck, on their last outing for parts before Jake reckoned he’d have them up and running. She was thrumming with excitement, ready to learn to ride - Embry had promised to teach her. The one thing dulling her mood was the fact Sequim, where the parts shop Jacob insisted was the only place this side of Seattle where they’d find what they needed was situated, was shadowed by a huge dark cloud. Bella scoffed at the sign they drove past.

**_WELCOME TO SUNNY SEQUIM_ **

This place gets sixteen inches of rain a year, and she visits on a day where the weather is almost Forks-like?

“Cheer up Bells,” Jacob said exuberantly. “It’s meant to be sunny down on the Rez next week. We can have a beach day - I mean, it’ll still be freezing but oh well- wait, take this next turn. And then right by that big tree. The turn-off for the shop is just down there. Now, I gotta warn you - this guy is a bit shady. Lenny has all the parts, but he doesn’t disclose where he gets them, and he’s not above selling dodgy kit if he thinks he can get away with it.” 

Bella was barely paying attention to him, entirely distracted by the sight of a car she recognised in the parking lot that was coming quickly into view. It was a cherry red BMW convertible, like Rosalie’s. Not actually Rosalie’s, surely. The Cullens must have at least moved out of the Olympic Peninsula, and why would they even visit a place in the rain shadow of the mountains? They’d be stuck indoors here nearly all the time, except for days like today. She dismissed the thought, ignoring the way her heart was beating faster, her hands clammy against the wheel. She had been doing so much  _ better _ , hanging out with Jake, going on a friend-date with Mike, getting back to normal with Jess and Angela. Yet one reminder of them and she half feels like she’s going to pass out. 

“You alright there Bella?” Jacob asked.

“Yep, fine.” She pulled into a space and climbed out of the car before he could press further, halfway across the carpark before he caught up to her with his long, easy strides. “What were you saying before?”

“Just that the guy that runs this place, he’ll have what we need but he might try and-”

Bella didn’t mean to ignore him again, but she had spotted a blonde figure through the glass window of the shopfront and was once again trying to convince herself that a red car and a blonde woman in a similar vicinity did  _ not  _ mean she was about to run into Rosalie Hale. She shouldn’t be worried, or get her hopes up, or whatever applied here; she had been confused for weeks about Rosalie, swanning through her window, accosting her with questions only to comfort her when she cried, only to leave with as little explanation as to why she arrived. She was sleeping mostly okay these days - since  _ that _ day - except when she was caught up in remembering the way Rosalie had looked at her, Bella’s palm pressed against her beautiful face, Rosalie’s cool hand wrapped around her wrist. She had looked so  _ stricken,  _ but her golden eyes had been so gentle, Bella’s touch clearly unexpected yet seemingly not unwelcome or unpleasant. Rosalie had always been beautiful, but remembering the vampire’s face in that moment made Bella’s breath stutter, the way her perfectly structured features had seemed to soften all at once. She wondered what it must be like to have that effect on every person you meet. 

The guy Jacob wanted to talk to was serving the blonde woman (the tall, immaculately-dressed blonde woman with impossibly shiny hair, Bella’s brain supplied, still fighting with itself to be rational) so he drifted over to sift through some of the auto magazines that the shop sold while Bella leaned against the wall near the door.

“Hey Bella, come check this out!” Jacob called her over, and the blonde woman -  _ Rosalie _ , because it  _ was  _ Rosalie, spun around and looked at her. Their eyes met, and Bella could not read the stunning, impassive face looking back at her at all, the eyes twisting darker than when she had last seen them - a month? six weeks? ago. 

The blonde’s mouth hardened in a stern line and she turned around again, back to the parts guy (Lennie, Jake had called him) as if she had never seen Bella. Bella stiffly walked over to where Jacob was waiting to show her an old edition of some magazine from the year her Chevy had first been released, and was featured on the cover. She traced the curve of the bumper on the page and smiled automatically at Jake’s spiel, but her mind was reeling, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she was surprised Jacob couldn’t hear it. She kept throwing glances back at Rosalie. None were returned; the blonde headed straight out of the shop without looking in her direction, the speed of her steps just a fraction too fast for a human. In a hurry to be away from her then. 

Bella was surprisingly hurt; this was probably in the top five friendliest interactions she’d had with Rosalie, but she had spent so long thinking about the other month that.... She didn’t even know what she’d expected. A hello, maybe? Not one intense stare and a swift exit. 

How very Edward in the early days of their relationship.

“Bella, we’re up.” She let Jacob pull her over to the counter and describe what he was looking for, lightly touching the cheque book in her pocket as her mind wandered.

“Sorry, what was that?” She asked, embarrassed to realise that Jacob and Lennie were looking at her expectantly, her friend frowning slightly.

“I was just telling your friend that I got two options for you: these drum brakes, from the same model you’re fixing up - sure they’re old, got some wear, but they’ll be fine. You can trust Lennie. Or these disk brakes. New tech compared to your bikes,  _ veeeeeery _ expensive.” He drawled, his voice wheedling and unpleasant. 

“How much?” She asked, and he rattled off the prices. She winced, knowing that she couldn’t afford two sets of the disk brakes, but Jacob was looking at her as if trying to convey a message. She looked back at him blankly.

“Why don’t you just get disks for your bike, Bella? I’ll finish mine another time. Or we could drive out to Seattle next week and look for another deal?”

“You questioning my business, kid?” It sounded distinctly threatening and Jacob, for all of his height and increasing bulk, shied away, cowed. He didn’t stop talking though.

“I just don’t think the drum brakes are the way to go-”

“I’ll take them,” Bella said. She didn’t want to ride without Jacob, she didn’t want to wait another week for parts. Maybe it was a little reckless, not prioritising quality of the parts, for the break especially, but maybe that was kind of her  _ thing  _ now. 

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Bella,” Jacob said, worry lacing through his usually care-free voice.

“Come on kid, give the lady what she wants.” Lenny said in his reedy, nasal voice.

Bella was impatient - she wanted to ride her bike  _ soon _ but most immediately she wanted to be somewhere she could dissect in detail the run in with Rosalie. What it meant - were the other Cullens nearby, was Edward? Was Rosalie back in Forks again? She laid a hand on Jacob’s arm, recalling the way she had gotten him to spill the Quileute myth of the Cold Ones.

“Yeah, Jacob.” She said, looking from beneath her eyelashes, her voice lowered in pitch. She felt ridiculous, but Jacob looked moonstruck, and she felt guilty for taking advantage of his blatant crush on her. “Give the lady what she wants.” He agreed, despite his clear hesitance, his own hand jumping to touch where Bella’s had been as she let go to pull out her cheque book and buy the parts. To assuage her guilt, she bought Jacob the trade annual she had seen him eyeing, handing it to him as “a final gift for the final fix”. He was glued to it the whole trip back, exclaiming excitedly about car things that she still didn’t understand as she drove. At least he was distracted from the drum brakes thing, even if he had looked even more lovesick at the gift. She really,  _ really _ , did not want to hurt this boy’s feelings. He had rapidly become the best friend she had ever had. 

The road back to Forks was clear, and they arrived back at the Swan place in time to eat dinner with Charlie and Billy, whom Jacob had dropped over before leaving for Sequim with Bella in her truck. 

“What did you kids get up to today?” Charlie asked over Harry Clearwater’s famous fish fry. 

“Thought we’d try for some sun in Sequim.” Jacob answered, a planned lie. Charlie knew she resented the constant rain. 

“No such luck,” she grumbled, completely sincere.

“Didn’t think to check the forecast?”

“Where’s the adventure in that?” Jacob replied, with so much enthusiasm that it almost made sense. 

“Are you guys still planning on going fishing tomorrow?” Bella asked, her voice carefully measured, so as not to seem like she was actually invested in the answer. She never showed anything more than polite interest in their trips.

“You bet.” Billy grinned, looking for a moment much younger, resembling Jacob. “It’s been far too long.”

Charlie smiled too, then frowned. “I only wonder if we should head further east. There’s been reports of a bear, an unusually big one, near the usual spot.”

“Pah, you worry too much.” Billy said, although he sounded slightly uneasy. Like he knew something. “No bear will bother us. The only thing you have to worry about biting is the salmon.”

Charlie laughed, and the rest of the dinner passed in quiet ease, Jacob cracking the occasional joke. He helped Bella wash up afterwards, as Billy and Charlie settled in front of the TV.

“So you’ll come over tomorrow?”   
  


“Nine A.M. okay?” An early start meant a greater chance of the bikes getting finished by the end of the weekend.

“Sometimes I think your sole purpose in life is making sure I never get a proper lie-in.” He signed, dramatically, and Bella threw a wet sponge at him. He caught it easily, and threw some suds at her in retaliation. “I kid, it’s fine. It means more time to hang out with you.”

“I think you might be my favourite person, Jake,” she told him truthfully, and tried not to notice the way his deep blush did not fade the rest of the evening, the tips of his ears still pink when he and Billy said goodbye.

She said goodnight to Charlie and headed up to her room, flopping down on her bed before she noticed a neatly wrapped package sitting on her desk. Had her mom sent something? Charlie hadn’t said anything, but maybe he forgot, although he rarely went into her room. Normally he would just leave things for her on the hall table, or at the foot of the stairs.

She got up, and opened the box. Inside lay what looked like paper-snowflakes with too much cut away in the centre, but these rings were made of metal: brake discs, she recognised from the parts shop in Sequim. A note was attached, with elegant Palmer cursive spanning the slip of paper.

_ These are better than the ones he tried to overcharge you for. And for the love of God, throw away the crap he sold you. Do you have a deathwish? - RH _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like 8000 words long? i cannot tell you what happened here. i just know i wanted to get back to rosalie pov by the next chapter so didn't want to split this up and! boom!


	5. the second glance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosalie needs a car part and gives a gift.

Rosalie’s eyes tracked the painfully slow movement of the seconds-hand around the hallway clock. She was perched on the middle-step of the stairs, shoulders curled with her chin resting on her closed fist as though it would cost her any physical effort to hold perfect posture. She was bored out of her mind.

It had been six weeks since she had spoken to a soul (living or otherwise). Since she had visited Bella Swan with questions and been answered with earnest tears. Since Bella had reached out to touch her face, the warmth of her hand impossibly lovely against Rosalie’s cool skin.

Not that she thought about it much.

No, Rosalie was simply running out of things to do - she had already read the few books remaining in Carlisle’s library, ridded the house of every speck of gathered dust, restrung her violin. She’d had the intention of playing it, but something stalled her every time she went to lift the bow. Maybe it was that Rosalie had never played without an audience; she didn’t know if she would want to be alone when the long, yearning notes spilled from the instrument. Having others present had always served beautifully as a buffer at the moments where the music started to resonate too dangerously, poking at carefully ignored wounds and threatening to reopen them.

Rosalie had not, would not, look at her phone. If her family were calling, she didn’t want to know; maybe her pride had gotten her into this position, and maybe she knew her anger was misplaced - yet she felt it all the same. And if her family were _not_ calling? She wanted to know even less.

Still. She missed Emmett terribly, she could admit that, as betrayed as she felt. A corner of her mind, preoccupied with where they stood now, was an expanding universe of dread; things had been changing between them since before her family had left. A light touch of irritation at her obstinate non-acceptance of Edward’s girlfriend had festered into something angry and disappointed at Rosalie’s refusal to help when James had hunted the human. It had still been there in Africa, she knew, although to any outsider - even their family - their relationship would have seemed completely normal. Some of the ease with which Rosalie and Emmett had always held themselves around each other had dissipated. Suddenly the physical intimacy they shared - embraces, kisses, _sex -_ was too hard, or too soft. Overcompensatory or withholding in turn. It had never been like that before.

Emmett used to call her Goldilocks. As much as Rosalie insisted she hated the nickname, always answering it with a swift elbow in the ribs or hurtling projectile, to think of it now made her ache. Everything about the two of them had always been _just right_. Her best friend, her lover. And yet now they were a little bit wrong, and everything was thrown a lot off-kilter. Rosalie wondered if it was even possible to get back to how they used to be now, the Rosalie-and-Emmett of it all. Now there was just Rosalie, in Forks, and just Emmett... well. She didn’t even know where he was.

Feeling herself get unacceptably sentimental, Rosalie once again returned all of her attention to the visible passing of time on the clock. It was eight seconds slow, she noticed, compared to the perfect time standard in her mind, as reliable as any atomic clock. She would have to check the mechanism. But later, she thought with satisfaction, because Lennie at _Sunny Motor Spares_ would be getting his latest shipment of parts in right about now, as the clock struck 2PM. Afternoon deliveries, full of the ill-gotten goods of the morning. 

The most objectionable part of Rosalie’s boredom was how easily it could be circumvented, had she had the one specific part she was lacking for her latest engineering project, stalling every other step in the total rebuilding of the old car frame in her garage. The internet had failed her, but Lennie? Never did, as much as she despised the lecherous, greasy little man. How he stored every bit of kit under the sun in that unassuming auto-shop she’d never know.

“Under the sun” was a key phrase there - the shop’s location in Sequim was a constant source of annoyance to her, positioned right in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountain range. Even its silly little moniker, _Sunny Sequim_ , seemed to taunt her, mark itself as off-limits. This afternoon, however, she had free reign. It would be over-cast, maybe even drizzly. Rosalie allowed herself the smile that had risen on her lips, unbidden. She may have been stewing in her isolation and proudly miserable with it, but she could grant herself these small joys

She had timed her day perfectly: avoid the morning shipment of parts, as the kit was never as good and the sun would still be threatening to pierce the young clouds; wait for the afternoon delivery, when the sky would grow grey; hit the road, which would be mostly empty at that time, cruising too fast for any human law; make it to the far-side of Sequim in under an hour, 40 minutes fewer than it should, just in time for Lennie to have finished going through his new inventory and re-open at 3. She would be served first, ahead of any other scroungers who might steal the pieces she wanted.

This degree of planning was largely unnecessary - she really doubted the niche bit of kit she wanted would be snapped up in minutes, and Lennie’s idea of punctuality was certainly not guaranteed to jibe with her own, but she was bored. Bored, and if she were honest - which she certainly would not be with herself - feeling lost. Exerting even the illusion of control onto the first somewhat noteworthy day she’d had in the last month felt grounding.

She stretched out, luxuriating in the soft leather seats of her BMW, and smoothed her fingers against the wheel. She hadn’t driven in months, had only even left the vicinity of the Cullen property and the surrounding woods that one time. She wasn’t even sure why she had turned her solitude into a house-arrest (even now something strangely nervous was flexing in her chest at the thought of leaving) but she was breaking it now. A familiar route, a familiar quest.

The car purred to life at Rosalie’s command, and she felt her body relax. This was her comfort zone. Soon the house, the woods, the rest of Forks fell away behind her and she accelerated along the mostly empty road, the thrumming of the engine like music to her. She sped up, going indulgently fast even for her.

Too late she spotted the traffic cops parked ahead - a long way still, but without slamming the emergency brakes she would still be speeding by the time she reached them on sheer momentum alone. Rosalie could control the vehicle through a dangerous braking manoeuvre, but she didn’t want to put her favourite car, pristine in every way, under all that stress. An encounter, then; it would not be consequential for her. In all her years of traffic violations, one look at her face had been enough to persuade any human not to give her a ticket.

As the car slowed from Rosalie’s drag race pace to a reasonable human-level speeding offence, she intentionally softened her features into the expression she wore when she wanted something from a human. She didn’t use it often; all she normally wanted was for them to leave her alone, to stop gawking at her like a zoo animal. Cold, intimidating, harsh - these were the faces she chose to wear. She pulled over at the cop’s instruction, and watched as a tall man with an ugly chin strap of facial hair leaned in to knock on the driver side window. She wound it down before he could touch her car, leaving his knuckles rapping against air. She hid her distaste when he moved his hand to rest upon the shiny red roof, fixing her expression into something like innocence.

“Are you aware that you were driving above the-” said the policeman, breaking off to choke on his own spit as he first looked at her properly. Rosalie tilted her cheek to avoid a globule of saliva that flew towards her, tracking it in slow-motion. “Ahem. Above the, uh. Speed limit.” As he recovered, his other hand joined the first on the car roof. His body and head, where he stooped into the space normally occupied by the plexiglass window pane, blocked out all light. Rosalie felt boxed in by him, and that strange twisting feeling started behind her ribs again. How could this inconsequential human, this man whose head she could cave in with a playful flick of the nose, make her so uncomfortable? Maybe it was the hungry way that he looked at her - that so many people, men especially - had always looked at her. But why did it bother her now?

She pushed her discomfort aside, resisting conflicting urges: to shy away or to show her teeth. She affected a southern drawl, one that she had developed in playful imitations of Jasper, her southern gentleman impression never failing to amuse her siblings. “I’m sorry, sir - it’s this car. It’s far more powerful than what I normally drive.” She looked up from under her lashes, ignoring the dryness in her mouth. It wasn’t from thirst, although she was overdue for a hunt.

The man nodded, as if he had expected as much. “I bet. It your boyfriend’s?”-- he took Rosalie’s one-shouldered shrug as an agreement-- “well, take it easy on the accelerator. Go on, I’ll let you off.” 

She thanked him quickly, winding the window up fast enough that the guy had to whip his head back so the glass wouldn’t knock his chin, driving away without any further ado. The distance between them could not close soon enough, and forced to stick to the pitiful speed limit, she heard the cop return to his partner in the parked car. “Nah, I let her off, you should have seen her, man. The things I would do to a girl like that given half the chance.” 

Rosalie caught laughter and the beginning of some related tale from the man she hadn’t spoken to before she surpassed the range of her hearing. _To._ To a girl. Rosalie felt nauseous, venom souring the back of her throat like bile. She felt like turning around and killing them both, was burning with it, fingers tight on the wheel. As soon as she could, she sped the car up and away from them, drowning out all sensations but the sight of the road, the singing of the engine and smell of leather.

It wasn’t much longer before _Sunny Motor Spares,_ the legitimate store fronting for some very non-legit deals done over the counter and round the back, came into view. Rosalie parked up and took a moment to collect herself. She never much enjoyed interactions with Lennie; he seemed to take his eyeline being at a level with her chest as permission from God to ogle. He was always fidgeting with the crucifix that hung on a chain around his neck. It amused her that he thought himself devout, giving thanks to his Lord and then turning around and selling dangerously faulty parts when he thought he could pull one over on his customer. He wanted all the blessings and cared little of the sins; she likely thought more of those than he did. She had been called the personification of the seven deadliest, once.

Still, Lennie was a necessary evil. She’d get it over with quickly, hold her breath as much as she could to avoid his greasy smell, like a deep-fat fryer left unwashed. She would get what she needed and leave, and then she’d have at least a straight week of work to do on her car. 

Entering the shop, she first collected a selection of trade magazines from the last few months, ones she wasn’t subscribed to. They weren’t her favourites but she had time to waste. In her peripheral vision she could see Lennie preening at the counter, smoothing his hair down as though he had enough of it left to flatten. She took a deep breath of clean air, and went to go talk to him. As usual he tried to drag out the conversation while she tried to cut to the chase. He would grossly overcharge her just so she would haggle it down to something fair but generous; she could afford even his inflated prices, but she refused to be had for a fool, even if Lennie won either way. 

Rosalie was paying only minimum attention to the man’s pointless blather and absently noted the approach of an obscenely loud car engine - _that_ certainly sounded like someone in need of some new parts. The shop door opened shortly after. There were two heartbeats, one staying by the door while the other meandered towards the stacks of vintage motor annuals. And then:

“Hey Bella, come check this out!”

Rosalie spun on her heel without even thinking - not towards the voice, but to its companion. The roar of the engine made sense now. Surely there was only one truck that loud in the whole Olympic peninsula. She looked away immediately on confirming her suspicion, but just as promptly looked back, taking a closer look. To Bella, it would seem as though she had never glanced away; her indecision had been so swift.

Bella Swan was leaning against the wall besides the door, looking distinctly uncomfortable amongst the motor gear, as if she didn’t know what she was doing here. Her gaze, intent but softened by the liquidity of her doe-brown eyes, met Rosalie’s. She felt unexpectedly gratified to see how well the girl looked: her skin was still pale, but back to its unusual translucent luminance, warmed by the pink of her cheeks and lips; her hair was clean and shiny, full-bodied; her back was straight, the line of her neck long and elegant. She was not hunched in on herself as she was before. Dark shadows still haunted her under-eye, and her nails were bitten, although not quite to the stubs they had been. 

Away from the unflattering comparison of a room full of vampires, Rosalie thought, Bella was far more lovely than she had given her credit for. In Rosalie’s mind, Bella had been this plain, meek, little thing with mud-brown hair and eyes, a too-pointy chin, always surrounded by her perfect, beautiful family. Looking at her now, Rosalie thought of the sketch she had drawn - Bella as Elizabeth Bennett- for the missing page in her copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ , and had considered too pretty to be an accurate description. Now she thought the opposite; her illustration had not captured the unexpected depth of Bella’s eyes, the way the sunlight, filtered as it was through the clouds and the murky shop window, dappled across her skin. 

Abruptly, realising she was staring and confused by why, Rosalie turned away and did not look back, overpaying for what she needed in a hurry to leave. As she left the counter, and Lennie’s vicinity, she took a breath and instantly regretted it. Bella’s floral scent danced in her nostrils, stinging her parched throat in a way that Lennie’s (and even the traffic cop earlier, close as he had been) hadn’t. Its appeal was tempered, thankfully - another smell, hot and sweet but marred with a touch of the wet dog smell Rosalie had been encountering around the woods. Bella’s Quileute friend, she supposed - not yet a shifter, but soon to be.

She climbed into her car, and turned the key in the ignition, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to drive away. What was Bella doing in an auto shop 75 miles from home? Was she just haunting Rosalie somehow, in a weird role-reversal between the dead and living? First she had insinuated herself so rapidly into her family, so at ease among the vampires and holding a burning torch to expose the rawest of Rosalie’s regrets. Rosalie’s mother’s book, the way Bella had touched her face, the long-buried memories that had grown so momentarily vivid. And then... whatever that had been just now. Her reaction to Bella, the way she had studied her features. Rosalie had scarcely met any vampires whose looks she held in esteem, her own face set her standards high. Even now, she was trying to reconcile how she had perceived Bella just now with the weak caricature she had thought of before. She couldn’t make sense of it. She settled on the Elizabeth Bennett sketch, the lines vague enough to tread a middle ground in which she did not have to consider disparities in so much depth. It made sense for Bella: a fragile collection of pencil strokes conveying only the barest truth. She was not a fully realised figure to Rosalie but an amalgamation of stories and assumptions and a few half-baked observations. 

Something nervous started in her chest again as Rosalie remembered with perfect clarity the warmth, the softness of Bella’s hand on her face, but it wasn’t unpleasant this time. Unexpected, maybe, even unwelcome. But far from that. She thought maybe - now that it was her idea, her choice, not some external influence from her family, the oppressive inevitability of Alice’s visions - that she would like to fill in some of those assumptions for herself, and get a handle on who Bella _actually_ was, regardless of the way everything the girl did seemed to hit directly at Rosalie’s vulnerabilities.

She focused her senses to listen in on the conversation happening in the shop, wanting to know why they were there, wanting to ground herself in her physical senses instead of the chaos of her emotions. Bella’s friend was describing his build - two old Honda XL250s that he was restoring from near nothing but the frame. Rosalie found herself reluctantly impressed with Ephraim Black’s great grandson. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Her begrudging respect turned sour as she heard Lennie set the price for what they wanted too high and attempt to fob them off with some subpar, likely faulty alternative. She couldn’t see the parts, but she had enough experience with Lennie and how he worked. The boy - Jacob - was wised up enough to back out of the deal, if not confident enough to push back on the overpriced brake-discs. But _Bella._ And that ridiculous low voice! 

Rosalie growled as the goods exchanged hands. _Stupid girl_ . Bristling in her seat and fighting the urge to go back in there, she stepped on the gas and whipped out of the parking lot before Bella Swan saw that she had not yet left. She was torn - if they were planning to _ride_ these bikes, did she have a duty of care to step in as a qualified mechanical engineer (several-times over) and prevent them from getting hurt? She knew what her family would want her to do, and as bitter as she was, she didn’t think that was enough to stop her doing it this time. She had multiples of the spares Jacob Black needed in her vast stacks of accumulated parts. It would cost her nothing but a few minutes of time, and letting go of whatever hold-ups she had about not owing Bella anything; she wasn’t even sure that was true.

Esme and Carlisle always insisted, the two of them always practically glowing with sheer decency, that every person owes kindness and is owed it in return. Rosalie struggled to see it that way. Carlisle had seen everything she had of the human race and worse, and yet he ascribed inherent goodness to people so easily; maybe it was his belief in a higher power. Rosalie sometimes felt like she viewed the world through a darker lens than her parents - where they would see white she could not help but see grey. It was one of the reasons she envied Edward’s at times burdensome gift. She was never able to fully trust even what on the surface seemed good intentions. It was what made loving Emmett so easily: the way his intentions spilled across his face like sunlight, always open and almost always kind. 

Rosalie, admittedly vain, was not so conceited that she did not apply this same philosophy to herself. The decisions behind her actions were often murky, as likely to be what she wanted to do as what someone else had not wanted her to do, or the outcome of some tangled web of the two. She was painfully aware of her own flaws, her sins, and how everything she did was shaped by them. 

It would be easiest here to do nothing, forget about it, to selfishly ask what did she care about a human girl who had once been important to her family and a soon-to-be wolf who might prove a risk to them? The problem with that, she realised, is that she selfishly did care, at least for the former. Had she not decided she would like to better understand Bella Swan? It wouldn’t be possible if she ended up smeared across the road in a motorcycle incident. So then, she would leave the parts, maybe a note. A proverbial olive branch.

It was easy enough, stopping by her garage and easily locating the spare parts she needed, to slip them into Bella’s room with a note. She had toyed with it. What should the tone be - light? Scolding? Should she joke, or would it not come across as such? In the end, she simply wrote what she might have said to Bella’s face, or one of her family had she been fixing a similar error on their part.

_These are better than the ones he tried to overcharge you for. And for the love of God, throw away the crap he sold you. Do you have a deathwish? - RH_

The last line would have been a joke had she been playfully scolding her siblings, and it still sort of was but... Rosalie thought about Bella’s deliberate ignoring of Jacob’s clear hesitance, her ghoulish appearance just months ago, the way those dark shadows had not ebbed. She supposed whether it was just teasing or not would depend on the answer. The sign off was impersonal, but so was her relationship with Bella.

Even with the detour to the Cullen house, the brief hunt for suitably non-festive gift wrap (she settled with brown parcel paper), Rosalie was well clear of the house when she heard its telltale roar.

Rosalie didn’t really know what she was waiting for after that - did she think Bella was just going to show up at the Cullen home and let Rosalie conduct a few psychometric analyses? She put the whole encounter - the chance meeting at _Sunny Motor Spares_ , the gift - to bed in her mind mostly. She had everything she needed for her project now. Time passed with unusual alacrity when Rosalie was working under the hood of a car, and it consumed her attention like little else could. It was easy not to think about Bella or how her gift had been received, except when something that still needed fixing would cause the engine to run a little too hot and Rosalie’s treacherous brain would go back to _that_ moment ( _the heat of her hand on your cheek the heat of her hand on your-)._

Either way, thinking of Bella or not - she did not appear. Not until the following weekend. 

Rosalie had emerged from the forest out at the back of the house, fresh from a hunt to the hulking site of the red Chevy in the drive, Bella leaning against it looking comically resolute, the lines of her body stiff and fist clenched. She looked like she was psyching herself up to make a demand she was nervous about, Rosalie thought. Like the men who had paced in front of her father’s office preparing to ask for a pay rise, or the boys who had watched her from across the floor for weeks before finally gathering the courage to ask her to dance. Sure enough, Bella wanted something from her.

“I need you to fix my bike,” she blurted, sounding desperate. “Jacob disconnected my foot brake.”

Rosalie stared at the nasty, stitched up gash on Bella’s forehead - so much less tidy than if Carlisle had done it, the scrapes on her forearms.

“Please,” Bella said.

“Okay.” The word had escaped Rosalie’s mouth before she had bid it. She quickly recovered, hiding her surprise at her own agreement. “Okay. But you have to let me teach you how to ride properly, so whatever this is doesn’t happen again. The others would kill me if after all their hard work keeping you alive I let a dirt bike get you.” She did not miss Bella’s wild flinch at the mention of her absent family.

The stern, demanding expression Bella’s face had been contorted into seemed unnatural on her. It fell away like a mirage, leaving her smiling tentatively. “Okay,” she agreed, holding out her hand. “Deal?”  
  


Rosalie thought about the last time she had touched Bella, the way one touch - that vitally human warmth, so soft against her skin - had seemed to shift things, shattered so many of her barriers. She folded her arms across her chest. Bella faltered while Rosalie attempted a smile, trying not to show too many teeth. She could not tell if it had its intended effect of putting the girl at ease.

“Deal,” Rosalie said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: oh yeah they're totally gonna talk in the next chapter  
> the next chapter: <\--------------------------------------------------------------------------->  
> them talking: <->
> 
> rosalie is maybe getting a little bit ooc r.e. bella but?? she's bi & bored & has nothing to do all day except dwell on the warmth of a pretty girl's hand on her cheek


	6. this is me trying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a rosalie x bella bottle episode with motorbikes, memories, and deep chats

Fixing the dirt bike was too easy for Rosalie, taking so little brain power that she was not even the tiniest part distracted from the conflict warring in her brain.

On the one hand, spending time with Bella Swan was not a good idea: every time they had interacted - even indirectly, like finding the book - Rosalie was confronted with memories that made her ache desperately, honed the edge of her resentment towards her second life. Over time, the anguish she felt had mostly dulled, but each recovered memory brought her closer to her lost humanity. 

On the other hand, Rosalie  _ wanted  _ to spend time with Bella Swan. She wanted to remember what it was to be human. In the exact moment of recollection the pain of it was exquisite, almost joyful, regardless of the tone of the memory - happy or painful or mundane. After, as the rush faded, as the  _ feeling _ of being human died out into an echo... that’s when the hurt shifted into a throb. Maybe she was a little addicted - as soon as she had grown used to the fresh pain each reminder brought, she was keen for the next, like... like when she was a child, and the cook would make her and her brothers hot chocolate on winter afternoons. It was her favourite treat, and without fail she would reach for it while it was too hot. That first, delicious sip would always burn her tongue; the lesson never stuck, only ever lasting until the discomfort faded.

It seemed even dwelling on the havoc Bella was wreaking on her personal stability was dangerous; the memory had surfaced unannounced as she searched for an allegory. They were getting clearer. She saw the delicate pattern on the rim of the cup she was drinking from, and felt the dry-numbness of her scorched tongue. Worse, she saw her little brothers’ faces in painfully sharp relief - she had not thought of them in so many years. It was easier that way. She twisted her spanner a little too hard as she reattached the foot brake, emotion spilling out into excess strength. No human mechanic would ever be able to unfasten that bolt; she wondered absently if the wolf boy would.

“There. Foot brake reattached.” Rosalie turned to Bella, tucking the wrench into her back pocket. “Are you cold? Your cheeks are flushed.”

Bella looked distracted for a moment, and then shook her head. “Hmm? Oh. No, I’m fine.”

Rosalie looked on doubtfully. Bella was wearing a jacket, but it was light considering the early December weather. The usual thick, insulative layer of cloud over Forks was sparse today, the air dry and cooler for it. She glanced over at the house. “If you’d like to come inside and warm up-”   


“No.” Bella was quick to interject, shaking her head fiercely. “I can’t go in there.”

A split-second of confusion. Then Rosalie realised she had drawn a separating line between the girl standing before her, and the girl she had seen six weeks ago. It would have been generous to compare the latter to a zombie; today she more-or-less resembled your average living, breathing human. (Less, Rosalie recognised, because there was still a mask-like quality to her face, a deadness behind the eyes, framed as they were by shadows. More because since looking,  _ really looking _ , at her during their run-in at Lennie’s auto shop Rosalie had been unable to view her as average or as plain; Bella was pretty. For a human). But despite the outward improvement in function, she was as wrecked by the Cullen’s abscondment as before. It was painful for her to even be in the vicinity of the house-- and yet she had sought out Rosalie’s help. 

“Why come to me to fix your bike if it’s so hard for you to be here?” Rosalie attempted to sound casual but instead her words were clipped, brusque. She so infrequently had to modulate her tone, rarely deigning to speak to humans and not caring much if she came across as rude when she did. She tried again with deliberate gentleness this time, and Bella’s defensive stance softened, her eyes glazing over slightly and her cheeks reddening further in the cold. “Sorry - what I meant to say was... You’ve clearly been finding it difficult since my family left, and I must be a reminder of that. I was wondering why you would put yourself through that discomfort.”

Bella paused momentarily, clearly weighing up what answer to give. “I needed my bike fixed”-- there was some incomprehensible gravity to that statement, like the dirt bike was some kind of lifeline-- “and you’re the only person I could take it to in Forks without Charlie finding out, since Jake was the one who took the brake off to begin with.” She scowled at that last part, as if it were some kind of betrayal.

“Why do you need it fixed so badly?” Rosalie’s curiosity seeped through the question - she sounded nosy, like her mother fishing for gossip over wine with the other women in town. Bella tensed up again immediately, her liquid eyes freezing over.

“And it’s not so difficult, seeing you”-- Bella hesitated over her words, like whatever she would say next might cross some unspoken boundary-- “because you don’t remind me so much of what - what I lost. That future.  _ Him _ . The family I found in yours. The rest of your family, the house - they’re part of the image.

“I always held you separate from it... I couldn’t reconcile the way you hated me with the happiness of that picture. So it’s easier for me to draw the line, I guess. Other than the whole vampire aesthetic.” She gestured over her face to demonstrate and chuckled half-heartedly. “And honestly, you’re so beautiful I’ve always found it difficult to look directly at you anyway.” 

The joke (if it could be called that - it felt more like a sad admission of insecurity) fell flat. The compliment did not soften the blow the previous words had unexpectedly dealt, hitting on an insecurity of Rosalie’s own. She felt her insides ice over as she wondered once again if her family were better off now they were away from her, the shadow that her bitter resentment for this life had always cast over their happiness.

And yet she couldn’t shake off the feeling that Bella’s words - while casually cruel in their honesty - were hiding another more pertinent truth. She had ignored Rosalie’s second question about the importance of the bike repair. But what could be more uncomfortable to say to Rosalie’s face than the admission that Bella did not view her as an inalienable part of the coven she had called her family for almost a hundred years, that she could so easily excise her from that unit? Fair as the feeling may be given Rosalie’s deliberate lack of welcoming, the calm, unreserved honesty was out of place - it was the kind of truth that normally waited to be twisted into a weapon during an argument. Were they having one now? There was a cold edge to Bella’s stare, like she was waiting to be asked about the dirt bike again.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Rosalie said in an even tone, “about why the bike is so important, and I want you to know that I know that, because I will not be had for an idiot. But you don’t owe me anything, including an explanation. As you said, we are not anything to each other. I fixed your bike, and now I will teach you to ride it, so that Edward doesn’t rip me into pieces and burn me on a pyre when you take a spill and end up dead or injured.” If Bella flinched at Edward’s name, Rosalie didn’t care. Two could play at touching nerves.

Bella nodded, her hands balled. Her knuckles were white with cold and the tight clench of her fists.

Rosalie twisted her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck as the chill wind picked up. “Good. Where’s your safety gear?” Bella looked at her blankly. “Helmet? Goggles? Chest protector, knee and shin guards, boots?” 

“Um. I don’t have any of those,” Bella said. She pulled at her dark hair to cover up the stitched gash on her forehead. “It’s fine, I’m not scared.”

Rosalie was unimpressed. “You should be. Have you ever seen a motorcycle accident - a real one, not whatever spill caused that little scratch? Because you clearly got very lucky. You’re not indestructible, Bella.” 

Bella sighed raggedly, clearly wishing she was, her insane desire to be turned evident on her face. A familiar twist of dislike flared in Rosalie’s stomach-- this callous disregard for her life was always what had been most unpalatable about Bella-- but it was not as pervasive as it used to be. She wanted now to fiercely talk some sense into the girl, to make her see what she was so lucky to have in front of her. She did not want her gone, would not let her own resentments risk the girl’s safety. “Wait here,” Rosalie said.

It did not take long to gather what she was looking for - a glossy helmet that should fit, a tough, supple leather jacket, a pair of riding gloves, a couple of gel hand warmer packets that Carlisle used when he needed his touch to feel more human. “Sorry, I don’t have much protective kit- I don’t exactly need it. Keep the helmet and gloves.” She didn’t need the protection from the riding jacket either, but Rosalie enjoyed the aesthetic of full biker leather and wanted it back; the physical reactions of the people around her were entertaining. As much as she did not care for the attention of individual humans, the power of her beauty was still intoxicating; she was sure that she could bring civilisations to their knees if she so chose.

“Thanks,” Bella said. 

Rosalie started by giving a run-down of the important parts of the bike, stopping every time she could sense Bella’s attention drifting away; she didn’t know how much Bella knew, and so she would impart every relevant lesson even if she looked bored or familiar with what Rosalie was talking about. Bella bristled lightly but answered everything correctly when Rosalie started testing her on the information.

There was more trouble when it came to checking Bella’s ability to balance the heavy bike, power-walking the frame forward and trying to remain upright when her feet were off the ground. Rosalie knew balance had never been Bella’s strong suit; it had been a unanimously believable excuse that the girl had fallen down two flights of stairs and through a window. Emmett had found that hilarious. She carefully adjusted Bella’s posture, and laid a gentle steadying hand on the frame of the dirt bike; she remembered her father doing the same when she had been taught to ride a bicycle on holiday in the Catskills as a child.

“Before you ride on your own, I think I need to know you’re shifting your balance with the bike correctly,” Rosalie said, hesitant, “which would entail riding with me. Would you be okay with that? I’m not hungry and my control is very good.” 

Rosalie heard the pace of Bella’s heart pick up and continued: “If you’re not, I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt should you lose control. It just won’t be as easy to tell what you’re doing wrong.”

“No, it’s fine. Even when I was bleeding everywhere at the party, you didn’t seem as though you were going to try to eat me.” Bella’s face twisted, even as her words were meant as wry.

One side of Rosalie’s mouth curved into a slightly smug smile. “It’s a talent of mine.” She waved her hands in a little  _ ta-da  _ motion - jazz-hands really - and instantly regretted it. Bella’s eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open in a disbelieving smile at the dorky little gesture. If she could have blushed, she might have; instead, she stuck her hands in her pockets where they couldn’t do anything else embarrassing. 

“What?” Rosalie said, quickly turning towards the bike instead of meeting Bella’s suddenly much warmer gaze, the earlier hardness thawed. She swung her leg over the saddle and flexed her grip over the handlebars.

“Nothing.” Bella moved towards her, and then stopped a couple of paces away. “Do I just”-- her heart rate sped again, and Rosalie watched the flush of her cheeks spread to the tips of her ears-- “climb on behind you?” Rosalie nodded. Bella swallowed hard and her voice squeaked slightly. “Okay. Um - I’m actually not very good at getting on? It’s too high, so I have to sort of lean it down and jump at the same time, and Jacob helped me balance-”

Rosalie thought of the awkward clamber Bella had managed when straddling the bike earlier and laughed. She hoped Bella didn’t think she meant it unkindly. The image was just so comically ungainly, all bambi limbs. 

Rosalie was surprised that she wasn’t annoyed by it; Bella’s klutziness had long been a point of irritation and disdain for her.  _ Being clumsy isn’t a personality trait _ , Rosalie had insisted on more than one occasion as Emmett told his latest ‘guess how Bella almost tripped and died today’ story.

That was still true, but maybe Rosalie didn’t see it entirely as a flaw now. Just a feature. It was so antithetical to Bella’s grace in stillness - you wouldn’t expect it of her until she began to move. Bella had always been a caricature to Rosalie, rather than a person. Today was the longest they had ever interacted, let alone one-on-one. She had cultivated prejudiced assumptions about Bella, determined to dislike her because of what she represented. It was natural that her view of the girl would mellow in line with actual observations.

She reached out for Bella’s wrist, fingers carefully closing around the leather jacket cuff instead of the thin strip of bare wrist exposed between the sleeve and riding glove, and tugged her closer to the bike, gently enough that it was Bella’s choice to take the steps. “Relax. Look, there’s these footpegs behind me here.”-- she flicked them out from the frame-- “I’ll hold the bike steady and you can just step up and swing your leg over. Hold onto my shoulder if you need, I won’t move.”

Rosalie held her breath as Bella climbed onto the bike, waiting for her to settle in behind her before she inhaled slowly, adjusting to the proximity of her scent. It was bearable, even pleasant, her thirst fully sated from her recent hunt. “I need you to sit further forward, lean right against me, and wrap your hands around my waist or in front of me on the fuel tank rather than my shoulders - yes, like that.” The warmth on her abdomen was immediate, the heat from the hand warmers tucked inside the top of Bella’s glove spilling through the suede. 

Another memory - a hot water bottle pressed to her aching stomach, soothing the pain there as she lay in bed, legs propped up against the wall at a strange angle in a position that alleviated the discomfort. She resisted a bitter laugh at the recollection - perhaps the single positive of her frozen womb. No more cramps.

Rosalie kick-started the engine easily. “Alright, lean with me when I turn and keep your feet up on the pegs. If you shift your weight wrong, I’ll know to correct you. That’s all, so don’t worry. I won’t let the bike fall. I’m heavier than you and I know how to handle a bike like this, even with a terrible passenger - Emmett is  _ awful  _ as a pillion rider.”

“Okay,” Bella said, and suddenly she was pressed tighter against Rosalie’s back, her body almost thrumming as an anticipatory edge. “Let’s go.”

The engine roared and the bike accelerated smoothly. It was too slow for Rosalie, who itched to test its speed, but she would not do that with a human passenger - if Bella somehow lost her limpet tight grip, she would not be likely to survive a spill at that velocity.

“Go faster,” Bella urged her, breath hot against the shell of Rosalie’s ear. The surprise of it sent a thrill up her spine, the back of her neck. Rosalie kept the speed of the bike steady, wary of the desperate edge to Bella’s voice - they were supposed to be practicing turns, not gunning it down the long stretch of the drive, and she was still distrustful of Bella’s motives. Had she become some kind of adrenaline junkie, hooked on the rush the hormone gave? She thought of her decades-old psychology degree - deeply outdated now, though she had recognised much of it as tripe at the time - and of how even then associations had been made between depression and sensation seeking.

Rosalie let the hand on the speedometer fall to the left and Bella made a strange, strangled noise in the back of her throat; it grated harshly against Rosalie’s sensitive hearing, but she ignored it. “Okay, turning left. Lean with me.... You want to shift your weight a little more, the bike will tilt but that’s what you want, especially around sharp corners. You need to treat it like an extension of yourself...”

She continued to feign indifference to Bella’s obvious frustration, focusing only on making sure Bella was moving with the bike exactly as she was. It was overwhelmingly clear when the human got it right; it was like partner dancing, and when Bella finally matched Rosalie, the way the bike turned was fluid and seamless. The sensation forced the air from Rosalie’s lungs, the feeling of perfect physical harmony, the warmth of the body pressed to her back. 

Rosalie exhaled sharply, as she suddenly remembered the last woman to ride with her like this. 

_ (Ireland in 1931, endless soft drizzly days over the dramatic landscape of the south-west coast, a summer trip accompanying her wealthy unmarried aunt. _

_ Buying stamps to write home. Being served in the little general shop by the most beautiful girl she had ever seen outside of the mirror. Wondering if even she could match the radiance of that smile, the high rose-dusted cheeks, the blue-green eyes that caught the light like sea-glass. _

_ Becoming friends so quickly, so intensely it shocked Rosalie - real friends, not the entourage of society peers she had kept in Rochester.  _

_ Rosalie learning all of Nuala’s favourite songs, taking up the fiddle - so spirited compared to the mournful classical violin styles she had been taught in New York - and the tin whistle, playing again and again at the girl’s request, rejoicing in every repetition as Nuala’s voice melted into the melody.  _

_ Nuala stealing her brother’s shiny new motorbike. Taking turns to ride lead and passenger, feeling her heart race as Nuala’s body melded against hers. Ignoring the brother’s advances; the attention of a handsome older boy meant nothing to her now, not when his sister smiled at her like  _ that.

_ Nuala’s face in the firelight as they laid themselves bare - first emotionally, and then physically too, exploring each other in secret. _

_ Meeting her from work and taking walks along the rocky, wild coast; it was difficult to picture the scenery compared to the vividity of Nuala’s appearance. It was like she never looked away from her friend’s face. Her friend: for that is all they had been, all they could be at that time.  _

_ Never speaking of what loomed between them- their mutual joy in each other or the illicit embraces because that would mean they would have to  _ stop.  _ They were too perfect to ever consider it that it would end, that they were on borrowed time. The two of them versus all the world. _

_ The world winning, eventually.) _

Rosalie felt as though she had been filleted, gutted like a fish. It had been so long since she had thought of that time, of Nuala and her bright eyes, and she realised why Bella’s hand on her cheek had been so shattering. It had not released the memories of Ireland from their tightly sealed vault, utterly repressed even before she had died... yet the touch had invoked them like a relic from a past life, an untethered sense of déjà vu. The tear-stained face, the desperate, wild eyes, though they had been brown instead of ocean green. Nuala begging her not to leave, hands cradling Rosalie’s cheeks.

She was dizzied by the force of the emotion she felt, the grief that washed over her. She slowed the bike to a stop - Bella had been turning safely, and Rosalie no longer felt in control of herself, like she might squeeze the handlebars to dust. She dismounted, holding the bike still, but Bella slid forward on the seat instead, asking to try it alone. Rosalie acquiesced, barely even looking as Bella clumsily kick-started the engine. 

She had loved Nuala; that was easy to admit now as it had not been at the time - and Nuala was surely dead. It was a pain she had not had time to come to terms with, not like the slow acceptance of the loss of her parents or younger brothers, and it had struck from nowhere. And yet she burned with it - felt electrified; she had never felt more alive than she had then, and now she remembered what it had been like. It was as much a gift as it was a burden, although it still scared her how being around Bella seemed to keep pulling her humanity from her like a magician’s handkerchief. She glanced up automatically, to look at the girl as she thought of her.

And she  _ leapt _ .

The bike was moving at an untenable speed, one even Rosalie would hesitate at given the maneuverability of the vehicle. Bella’s body was hunched as far forward as it could, as though there were something just out of her reach, and if only she could move a little faster she might catch it. Tantalus and his fruit tree.

She didn’t need Alice’s foresight to see what was about to occur - Bella was approaching a corner. She couldn’t slow down - even if she tried, and Rosalie didn’t know that she would - in time to make the turn, and then the Honda, and Bella with it, would end up wrapped around the huge cedar tree in its path.

She landed like a cat in front of the motorcycle, allowing it to ram into her as she threw herself backwards to absorb the impact. When her back hit the cedar, the ancient trunk creaked in protest but managed to stay upright; several branches broke away with thunderous cracks, exposing the sky above. The bike had slowed enough to remain intact before it fell to the ground, but Bella was thrown over the handlebars. Rosalie caught her as gently as she could, although all of her muscles were twitching with barely restrained fury. “What the  _ fuck _ , Bella? Are you insane?”

Bella’s eyes were wild, but her face was unbelievably blissful, giddy with it, and Rosalie thought she must be right. “It worked.”

“What worked?”

Bella didn’t answer, just closed her eyes and smiled even wider, luxuriating in whatever madness had taken her. 

Rosalie’s mouth twisted with impatience. “Snap out of whatever this is, or I will take you home to Charlie and show him that bike. And then I will scrap it for parts.”

“No.” Bella said, eyes flashing open. Her voice was half-panic, half-anger. “I need it.”

“ _ Why _ do you need it so badly? There are other ways to feel adrenaline! Watch a horror film, go to a theme park - you don’t need put yourself in danger!”

Yes, I do,” Bella said, her voice a whisper. “You can’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“You said I don’t owe you anything.” 

Rosalie held back a snarl, disbelieving and furious. “That was before I just jumped in front of a vehicle going 80 miles per hour to save your life. It might not have been life-threatening, but it was not a painless experience.” She imagined it was similar to a human being slugged in the ribs with a baseball bat.

“I didn’t ask you to do that.” Bella’s chin jutted out in defiance. 

“So I was just supposed to watch you die?”

“What do you even  _ care _ ? You planned to kill me yourself, once, and you were happy to let James get on with it. Why bother yourself with my safety now?” Bella’s hands balled into fists and her eyes glinted challengingly, the euphoria that had been in them when Rosalie caught her faded.

“I don’t know.” Rosalie said. “But I have been bothering myself with it. I gave you those parts, didn’t I? Was trying to teach you to ride safely? You must have known I was somehow invested in you staying alive before you pulled that little stunt.” Frustration curdled her beautiful voice into a hiss, a touch of the feral vampire about it. Bella did not back down.

“I don’t know your motives for anything, Rosalie. You claimed it earlier you were doing it because he - E-Edward”-- she stuttered over the name, flinching at herself, but the intensity of her stare did not waver-- “would be upset if I got hurt. But  _ he left me.  _ And he knew that would hurt me more badly than anything, so I don’t know that that tracks. And now I’m wondering why you’re even back here  _ again -  _ because I’m starting to think you’ve been in Forks this whole time, not “coming back to fetch something”, like Alice wouldn’t have anticipated the things you’d need to bring. So what is it, Rosalie - your family left you too? And now you’re what, trying to get back in their good graces by playing nice with the little pet human you’ve always despised? Because you’re wasting your time - they’ve moved on from me, clearly.”

_ How stupid this little human is _ , Rosalie thought. To think her family didn’t care about her, like she hadn’t revitalised the stale cycles of their eternal existences; the evidence was clearest in Jasper. He might be stiff _around_ the girl, the scent of her blood too much for him still, but the rest of the time he moved around like he was floating on air, soaking in the happiness his family had found in Bella like a sponge. Even Rosalie’s moods were rarely enough to bring him down. And then to believe  _ Edward  _ didn’t care - it was just laughable.

Except Rosalie wasn’t laughing.  _ So what is it, Rosalie - your family left you too? _

“No,” she said through her teeth, body perfectly still as she held herself back from lunging for Bella’s throat. “I  _ stayed _ . It was my choice.” And their choice was to go anyway, a small bitter voice supplied in the back of her mind. _Emmett_ chose to go anyway. Her shoulders slumped, just barely: the tension dissipated, but her posture was never anything less regal. The urge to argue left her - lashing out to win a fight is what had gotten her in this mess to begin with.

Rosalie cast her gaze upwards, looking at the sky rather than Bella’s face, trying to steady herself. The thin layer of cloud was growing sparser, she realised, the brisk wind hurrying their formations across the sky. Soon, the pale sun would lose its veil. 

Even as she thought it, the first shaft of light fell through the gap in the crown where the branches had fallen away, casting its beam across the right side of Rosalie’s body: her bare arm, the length of her neck, the sharp planes of her jaw and cheek. She heard Bella gasp as light refracted in rainbows across the periphery of her vision. Rosalie’s eyes took just a fraction of a second to adjust before she could see perfectly again, but for a moment she was half-blinded by the radiance of her own skin. Bella was gaping at her - in shock? In awe? - and never in her afterlife had Rosalie felt so exposed. 

“Please, don’t look at me,” Rosalie said. She stepped further into the shade of the tree, but the sun was growing strong enough to dapple more evenly through the canopy. She hated the way sunlight shattered against her skin, restricting her kind to cloudy skies and dark shadows. Creatures of the night. She could almost imagine she was human most of the time, but not like this... She had seen her reflection in Bella’s eyes - undeniably beautiful, as always, but utterly otherworldly. 

Bella looked away, seemingly with difficulty, and Rosalie sped towards the solid shadow of the house, where her skin settled into smooth marble again, the palest flush from her recent hunt visible through the chalk-white. After a short time, Bella followed, shoes scuffing along the path as she wheeled the dirt bike along next to her. Something in her face looked... bereft, and she sighed as she looked at Rosalie, no longer sparkling.

“Are you okay?” Rosalie said, in a soft voice. The tension of their argument had been dying before the sun came out, and there was no trace of it left now, burned away by the light. “I didn’t mean to frighten you before, I was just so angry at how reckless you were. You have so much that you’re so willing to waste.” Her last sentence was bewildered. She didn’t understand how Bella could not see that the life ahead of her, full of sunshine and change and  _ choices,  _ was a precious thing.

“I’m fine.” Bella shrugged, and then looked abashed. “I am sorry - and I will explain. I do owe you that, you’re right. But I just need a moment - to recover.”

“From the crash? Were you hurt?”

Bella turned red. “No,” she mumbled, “from seeing you in the sun like that.” She swallowed hard, and Rosalie watched the movement of the throat, not comprehending. In a whisper, Bella said, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life... and now it’s hard not to be seeing it.”

Rosalie didn’t know what to do with that. She knew she had an... effect on others, humans and vampires both, but Bella had never seemed to respond to it. She had always been afraid of Rosalie’s hostility, all uncertain breathing, pounding heart, sweaty palms. Purely aesthetically, she supposed she could understand - she had seen grown men weep in art galleries, overcome by what was before them. Rosalie looked at her hands, feeling shy in a way she hadn’t since she was a teenager. 

“Oh.” A beat. “I’ve never liked it,” she said. “It’s been almost a hundred years and it still makes me feel like an alien or something.”

“Like a vampire?”

Rosalie’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Or that.” She freed her hair from its chignon, winding her fingers through the strands and tugging at them, a nervous habit that had followed her from her first life.

“I feel like” -- Bella stopped and huffed a laugh at herself mid-sentence -- “sorry, it’s kind of stupid. But there’s a part in one of the chronicles of Narnia where Lucy is reading this magic book, and she comes across a story. And it’s the loveliest story she ever read or will read, but as soon as she finishes it, she’s already forgetting the details and she can’t read it again because the pages won’t turn back.”

Rosalie ducked her chin, and offered Bella a close-lipped smile. “Sun’s gone in already, so your luck is out if you were hoping for a second showing.” She kept her tone carefully light, not intending to mock. “Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was always my favourite.”

Bella’s eyes darted to the side, as though trying to work something out. “Of course,” Rosalie continued, catching on. “I was technically thirty-seven when it came out, so not exactly a childhood staple.”

There was another part of that scene Bella described that had always resonated with her - a spell in that same book that would have made Lucy impossibly, inhumanly beautiful, with disastrous consequences; she had so often wished to be more beautiful than the Cullens in Rochester. That had been granted at too high a price. 

Bella’s eyes widened slightly as Rosalie put her age in perspective, but she otherwise didn’t react to it; Rosalie supposed that came of being in love with a boy who almost died of the Spanish Flu. “I like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe best... I wanted to  _ be  _ Lucy Pevensie, stumble across a secret, magic world like that.”

“Want me to hide in the back of a closet for you?” Rosalie raised an eyebrow, perfectly arched - it seemed Bella got her childhood wish, even if it was vampires and shapeshifters instead of beautiful witches and talking lions.

“Ha ha.”

They were quiet for a moment, and then Rosalie spoke, a gentle prompt. “You said you’d explain why you tried to crash the bike...” 

Bella sighed. “I wasn’t trying to crash it - just to go  _ fast. _ ” She slid down against the wall of the house and tucked her knees in, gripping her own elbows and tilting her chin into her chest, eyes cast down. “I can hear him, Edward, when I’m doing something reckless or dangerous. He talks to me in my head and he  _ cares _ and it’s like I’m coming alive again. I couldn’t hear him when I was riding with you, so I thought maybe it was a fluke before, and I was  _ desperate  _ for it to work so I just... you know. So... long story short, I am crazy after all.” She sunk further into herself, hunched and tiny.

Rosalie gracefully folded her legs beneath her, lowering to the ground to sit in front of Bella. “All the best people are.”

“Really?” Bella looked up, and her eyes were rimmed with red. “Alice in Wonderland?”

Rosalie shrugged, smiling gently. “Sorry. I didn’t really know what to say to that, and you got me thinking about children’s literature. But really, it’s been far too long since I did my psychology degree, and it was mostly quack anyway, so I don’t know that I have any right to judge your sanity.”

“I’m hearing voices,” Bella said, “and risking my life to do it.”

“Well, when you put it like  _ that _ ...” Rosalie widened her golden eyes in emphasis, and then sighed. “Look, Bella. It honestly sounds, really, really stupid to me, because I cannot imagine wanting to hear my idiot brother’s voice that badly and you have  _ so much  _ to lose. And from what Edward has said, it would kill your father if anything happened to you.” She took a deep breath, and let Bella’s scent burn in her lungs like clarifying incense. Bella had been honest with her, and she would respond in kind, laying her own motives bare. 

Bella wasn’t quite looking at her, gaze fixed somewhere over Rosalie’s shoulder, cheeks still glowing with embarrassment. Rosalie reached forward and, as gently as she knew how, tilted Bella’s chin towards her with just the knuckle of her index finger, the barest touch. Bella’s eyes swung to meet hers, pupils dilated. Rosalie dropped her hand; she hadn’t meant to make her nervous, just to get her attention. “And honestly,” she continued, “I understand where you’re coming from. About doing things you wouldn’t normally do so as to feel alive... Although, it’s a bit more literal for me.

“The reason I decided to send you the safer parts, to teach you to ride safely, was so you wouldn’t die. My family _does_ care deeply for you, whatever you seem to think, and although I did give that some consideration, ultimately I made that choice mostly for selfish reasons. Ever since that day I broke into your bedroom, and even before that” -- Rosalie thought of the book now lying on her desk, where it had really all started -- “being around you has made it so much easier for me to remember what it was like to be human. Like the haze is lifting, bit by bit... the clarity of memory - it’s nothing like I’ve had since soon after I was turned. And it’s absolutely awful in some ways, to know better exactly what I lost, but it’s exhilarating and beautiful and I think I am a little bit addicted to the feeling. So I sought you out, because I wanted to feel human and I wanted to understand you better, now that nobody is telling me I have to.

“So as I said, I think I have some idea of why you would go to such lengths to feel more alive; I saw what you were like a couple of months ago. I just hope you find another way to do it. It’s not healthy, Bella. He doesn’t intend to come back to Forks. You have to move on.”

“I don’t know how,” Bella said, voice desperate. Her chocolate brown eyes were molten with tears; Rosalie counted the flecks of gold in them, thirty-four in the left and forty in the right. “I know I have to try, but I don’t know how.”

Rosalie closed her eyes for a second, thinking of Nuala, her lilting accent and sea-glass eyes, the freckles on her shoulders. She thought of returning to New York, Vera holding her as she cried without explanation, day after day, until one afternoon she didn’t, and things felt a little easier. She thought of the guilt she felt, months later, when her heart raced as she danced with a boy with a beautiful smile, and how that guilt had dissipated as her affection for him grew.

“It’s a terrible cliche... but time heals a lot of wounds, broken hearts included.”

“You’re speaking from experience.” It was a statement, but there was a question implied, and Rosalie found she didn’t mind. The conversation had fallen into a place where they were sharing - like with Nuala walking in the cliffs, or in secluded corners at parties with champagne-drunk friends and friends-of-friends in Rochester. Long conversations where secrets and saving-face took second place to honesty.

“Mmm. I’m remembering.” She moved from her position in front of Bella, to sit beside her against the walls. Legs stretched straight in front of her, she pointed and flexed her toes within her boots, watching the way the movement pulled on the leather. “I’ve never told anyone about this. I couldn’t, and then I couldn’t recall.”

“You don’t have to-”

Rosalie cut Bella off. “No, it’s alright. I might have told my friends at the time, except it would have caused a scandal. You see, her name was Nuala.” Rosalie heard rather than saw Bella’s head slam into the wall of the house as she bolted upright from her curled position. “Is that a problem for you, Bella?”  It wasn’t the 1930s anymore but opinions had only changed so much, and Forks was a small town. 

“Nope, not a problem,” Bella said, her voice strangely hoarse. “My mom raised me to always be an ally.”

Rosalie smiled, still looking at her feet. “Good. Well, her name was Nuala, and I met her when I was sixteen. My aunt - unmarried, with more money than she knew what to do with - brought me with her on a summer trip to Ireland to see where my great-grandmother had grown up. This tiny little village in the south-west. She sold me stamps... and then we fell in love, not that we ever defined anything at the time. It wasn’t technically illegal, like it was for men, but it was still against God and decency, things I didn’t care about the way the rest of society did. But we loved each other, while it lasted, and I still loved her after - I don’t know if she did. I didn’t speak to her again.”

“I suppose long-distance relationships were more difficult back then.”

Rosalie laughed, but it came out harsh, guttural. “It ended a little more dramatically than that,” she said, closing her eyes as the memories washed over her.

_ (A picnic in a quiet cove, a few miles from the village. Staining their lips blue with the bilberries they gathered in the heath, curling up to each other against the rocks. Nuala braiding her hair, the innocence of the touch belying its intimacy. _

_ Nuala dropping Rosalie home, laughing as the girl riding pillion clung to her waist, melded against her. Their giddiness evaporating at the sight that met them, rapidly cooling to fear: Nuala’s father, Rosalie’s aunt, the parish priest, the stern-eyed widow who ran the store where Nuala worked. In one hand she was clutching the crucifix that hung around her neck, the other resting upon her son’s shoulder. His gaze was icy too - he wanted to marry Nuala, and Rosalie _ hated  _ him. _

_ Shouting and crying. Rosalie painted as the devil incarnate, a beautiful demon tempting Nuala from God’s path.  _

_ The boy had seen them together, followed them, saw them kissing and... Rosalie hoped that was all. Had told his mother, who had called upon the others.  _

_ Her aunt dragging her away as Nuala’s eyes flooded with tears, her hands hot on Rosalie’s face as she begged her to stay (“no, please, i can’t lose you, rose, please”). _

_ As if Rosalie had a choice; she was on a ship back to New York the next day.) _

She felt the heat of Bella’s hand, sans riding gloves, before it touched her own; though her eyes were closed, she did not jump at the touch, anticipated it instead. She let the girl pry open her balled fist, relaxing the muscles there, and squeezed her eyes closed more tightly still as Bella twisted their fingers together, her other hand coming to rest over their entwined ones. 

“I’m so sorry, Rosalie,” Bella said, her voice quiet. “It must’ve been hard not being able to talk about it with anyone.”

“I’m sure you know a little bit about that, Bella.” Rosalie opened one eye, was surprised to see tear stains tracked down the other girl’s cheeks.

“It’s not the same... at least people know I got my heart broken and who by. And that’s the crux of it, really, a break up. The other... stuff... I knew I would never be able to tell anyone anyway. I just wanted it so badly. To be one of you.”

Rosalie flipped her palm upwards in Bella’s and squeezed lightly before letting go, refusing to give rise to her old anger, although it simmered deep in the pit of her stomach. “I’ll tell you one day why that’s such a foolish wish.”

“I know about the stupid s-”

“It’s not the stupid soul thing,” Rosalie said softly, “but I think I have shared enough of my story today.” She rose to her feet, and held out an arm to help Bella to her feet. “Now, come on, it’s gotten late - I’ll make you something to eat.”

Bella looked apprehensively at the house, feet rooted to the spot, shoulders held in an awkward tension by her ears.

“You need to move on Bella,” Rosalie said, not unkindly. “It’s just a house.”

“It’s just a house,” Bella repeated. And then, under her breath like a mantra: y _ ou need to move on, you need to move on, you need to move on. _

Rosalie pretended she couldn’t hear, and opened the door to her home, letting Bella in.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rosalie: i like girls  
> bella: [spittake] what!!!!! i mean not that i care im just a good ally


	7. a little indulgence is good for the soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which rosalie is not the hostess with the mostess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, that it's been a little while! I was un-furloughed and work hit back with a vengeance. Hope you enjoy and thank you for all the lovely reviews <3

The door closed behind them, and it was as though a shutter had come down with it, cutting off the ease which had stretched tentatively between them. Rosalie didn’t look at Bella, but watched her from the periphery of her vision. Her hands were balled into fists, her shoulders drawn together. Her posture sagged like her bones were collapsing in on themselves. The sound of her heart was uneven, erratic, a series of rapid thumps interspersed with skipped beats, and the rhythm was mismatched to her shallow breaths.

Rosalie took in the room, thinking of the changes to it since Bella’s birthday; she hadn’t given it much thought, other than the untarnished rectangle of wall where Esme’s favourite painting had hung. She spent little time there, preferring to haunt her personal sanctuaries - the garage and her office there, the forest, the greenhouse.

The sprawling room was still furnished, immaculately clean since Rosalie had taken it on herself to endlessly battle the settling dust, but it was not dressed; it looked less lived in than a furniture store showroom. The shining crystal fruit bowl that was always kept well-stocked for Bella’s benefit - they were always so overprepared for her visits, God forbid she had a craving that the Cullens couldn’t fulfil - was gone, as was the low glass coffee table it had sat on. Carlisle had cleared the bloody shards, and the floor had been so thoroughly bleached that no amount of Luminol would reveal the traces of blood there, but they had not replaced it.

The open space between the sofas seemed odd, and an echoing emptiness settled in Rosalie’s stomach as she noticed what else was missing. Esme’s was not the only art missing from the walls. The antiques and strange little curios that Alice liked to scatter across every surface were gone, from little stone frog statuettes to tall, triumphant vases; Rosalie found herself fruitlessly looking for shoes strewn across the floor. Her sister preferred to go barefoot, would kick off her shoes carelessly as soon as she entered the door, deliberately haphazard in her disdain, especially in the kind of footwear she had to wear to blend in at school; her Louboutins were treated with a little more love.

“What happened to the piano?” Bella asked, and her voice sounded ugly to Rosalie, hoarse and grating. She didn’t think Bella would like the answer. Edward had torn it to pieces, ripping it apart key by key before setting it ablaze, an act so overwrought, melodramatic, that Rosalie might’ve scoffed at it had it not been so viscerally upsetting. The piano was almost as old as she was, having been with Edward since before she had turned. She remembered admiring it in a rare visit to the Cullen’s house in Rochester, the family participating in societal niceties just enough to deflect suspicion. 

She thought of the way he had pocketed a single, ebony key while flames licked at the bonfire of splintered wood. It wasn’t a lie when she said, “It meant a lot to my brother. He wanted it with him,” even if it omitted a lot of the truth. 

The raised stage of the floor that had supported the piano looked bereft without it. Only Rosalie’s own instruments, hard black cases of varying sizes remained tucked in the corner. She had always preferred strings. They did not have the rich presence of the baby grand, though they were beautiful inside of their black shells.

“Those are yours?” Bella nodded at them.

“Yes. But I don’t play very often.” Bella nodded, not feigning any interest in listening to her do so.

“I don’t listen, any more.”

How unspeakably sad, Rosalie thought, to live in a world without song. She resolutely ignored the call of her violin bow, as she always did. 

“How do you stand it?” Bella said, after a long time, and it took Rosalie a second to catch her meaning; little things and little absences haunted the house, spectres of her family serving only to make their absence more stark. The house felt like a dead thing, a looted tomb. Bella’s warmth, the vital beating of her heart, stood out like a lush tree in a barren field.

How had Rosalie stood it? It all seemed so lifeless now, but it had been bearable before, even if loneliness crept in at times. Maybe it was that there was no living oasis to provide contrast; she herself was as dead as the rest of the landscape. Her presence here made sense, and Bella’s did not.

She was reminded that she promised Bella something to eat, mostly for something to say to break the tension outside, but now she was wondering what she would make. Her family hadn’t left human food rotting in the refrigerator; there was no life here to sustain, after all.. 

She sifted through mental images of the pantry cupboard as last she had seen it, looking for bicarbonate of soda to draw the musty smell from her mother’s old copy of  _ Pride and Prejudice.  _ There had been baking ingredients, but she did not have butter, eggs, or milk. There was dried pasta, but no sauce - Esme had always made that from scratch with fresh ingredients.

“I think we have a can of vegetable soup?” Rosalie’s voice trailed up like a question, sorry that she didn’t have more to offer. She felt awkward and unprepared, a world away from her human life, groomed to be the perfect hostess, benevolent and bounteous. 

“That’s fine,” Bella said. Rosalie had a feeling she could have offered her a full Michelin-starred tasting menu and received the same reaction. Their footsteps were out of sync as they walked together to the kitchen. Bella hovered in the doorway, hip pressed to the frame as Rosalie moved towards the cupboard, retrieving the tin. Her gaze felt obtrusive, and Rosalie felt out of her element, and exposed for it. How much would she want to eat? A can? Half? Two? “I can heat it up, if you like.”

“What, you don’t think I’m capable of warming up pre-cooked soup?” Rosalie snapped, her voice sharp. Just because she never had didn’t mean she couldn’t. “I might be dead, but I do have hands and a brain.”

Bella’s hands lifted in surrender, eyes wide as her brow furrowed in surprise. “I only meant - I know human food smells bad to you. I didn’t want to put you out.”

Rosalie knew she had overreacted, jarringly so, but her neck remained stiff, her chin haughtily raised as she did not reply. She had shown too much of herself today, and apologising would lay her more bare still. She wrapped her pride around her like a rampart.

It wasn’t true that food smelled bad to her; it just didn’t smell appetising. She could still appreciate the perfumes for what they were: roasting coffee, gentle curls of tea-steam, the layered aromas of herbs, fresh vegetables from Esme’s garden. Granted, this particular soup did smell fairly disgusting, the soggy pieces of vegetables somehow bland and bitter at once, the broth too salty, the stale, preserved herbs. Somehow, it was still considerably less repulsive than the scent of the lunch food in the school cafeteria.

“Would you like a tea?” She said carefully, erasing her previous hostility from her tone. Opening an overhead cabinet, she pulled out a dark green tin, filled with loose leaf jasmine green tea, wanting to flood the kitchen with a smell other than the unpleasant soup. It was causing her senses to seek out the much more appealing scent of Bella’s blood. 

“No thanks,” Bella said, still cautious in the doorway. Rosalie shrugged and made herself a cup anyway; the jasmine was a soothing scent, and her nerves felt frayed. The smell of caffeine always invigorated her - a placebo, probably, but it was something. “I’d really rather just have a glass of water.

“This isn’t for you,” Rosalie said, lowering the heat on the stove as the soup started to simmer, and giving it a stir with one hand. The china cup she held in the other was scorching hot, and she felt her skin warm like coals in a fire. The steam was a relief to her, drowning out the tang of the soup and the draw of the human blood. “But help yourself to a glass of water. You know where they are. Or, actually-” Rosalie thought of the last time Bella had been near glass in this house.

“I got it,” the human said quietly, a sour twist to her mouth like she had identified the cause of her apprehension. The water running from the tap was obnoxiously loud as it crashed against the stainless steel of the sink, and then Bella took her glass to go sit on a stool by the island, finally quitting her hovering at the entrance. She looked at Rosalie. “You’re all dewy.”

Dewy didn’t seem like the right word; Rosalie’s face was wet. Condensation from the jasmine tea had settled against her skin, a close veil of mist, the droplets warm against her face even as they cooled.  _ Bella’s  _ skin was dewy, that clear, almost translucent glow; it seemed at times to shine like the first sign of dawn on spring grass. Light reflected from it so smoothly, evenly, instead of refracting in every direction like a shattered mirror.

Plating up the soup, Rosalie didn’t know what to do with herself as she set it before Bella with a spoon. Where to stand, or to sit. She settled for the seat at the head of the island, at a right-angle to Bella, keeping her distance without being overtly rude. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything else with it. I hadn’t quite thought about how little stocked the house is with human food now.”

“It’s no problem,” Bella said, and then silence descended like a heavy blanket. Bella was obviously struggling with being in the house, eyes darting about and never settling anywhere for too long, her free hand tapping a compulsive rhythm against the granite. Rosalie breathed in the steam from her tea, let it warm her face and lungs. 

Bella glanced at her phone, face up on the island, as the screen lit up. Her mouth turned downwards at the corners, and she sighed a little.

“What is it?” Rosalie said, before she could grip her own curiosity by the reins, rationalise that whatever this human had going on in her life, it surely wouldn’t be a concern to her.

“Um, nothing really. There was a group of us meant to be going to a movie tonight, but there’s some bug going around... that was Jake texting me to say he’s got a fever and can’t make it. So now the only other person coming is Mike Newton.”

“Jake’s your Quileute friend, yes?” She had seen he wasn’t far off from his transformation at Lennie’s shop, and she wondered if the febrile illness was part of that. Ephraim Blacks’s wolves had always been strangely hot-blooded. Carlisle would be interested in this; he found the biology of the shifters fascinating. Bella nodded. “That sounds like a cosy date, you and the Newton boy.”

_ The Newton boy,  _ she repeated to herself, wondering if she always sounded so much like a Disney villain. Edward had hated the blond for his thoughts around Bella, though she wasn’t clear if it was possessiveness or if Mike’s thoughts were objectively distasteful.

“He’s my friend,” Bella said, shoulders drooping. “I just... don’t know that he’s happy to leave it like that. But ugh, it’d be so rude to cancel, and I have work tomorrow so I can’t just tell him I’m sick.”

Bella was complaining, but the heavy atmosphere had dissipated - such a normal, teenage girl conversation, boy problems and part-time jobs and navigating high school friendships. It didn’t pull up any specific memories, the way Rosalie had half-come to expect in any given moment with Bella around, but she felt a touch of deja vu, a feeling just out of grasp, words on the tip of her tongue. It’d been a long time since she’d had anything resembling a normal teenage conversation, even though she still felt like one in almost every way

_ I could come with you, _ Rosalie almost said, clamping her lips together before the rogue offer could voice itself. She carefully schooled her face into nonchalance, taken back by the fact that the thought had even occurred to her, that she felt almost... wistful. As uncomfortable as it had been since they had stepped into the house, the strange openness that had coalesced between them dissipated, she found she was reluctant for Bella to leave - or maybe she simply did not want to be left on her own again, their motorcycle bargain fulfilled. She had been alone for so long now, she thought. Her throat ached, and not with thirst, but the spectre of a metaphorical lump that had formed there. She remembered what it was to try not to cry.

“I don’t suppose you want to buffer for me,” Bella said, voice so deadpan it wasn’t even a question - clearly it was not intended as an invitation, and Bella’s mouth quirked upwards, amused like she had said something absurd. Perhaps she had. 

But the part of Rosalie which had almost offered to go herself - that wistful, lonely portion - wrenched itself free from the unforgiving grasp of her steel will, and bounded into the world, unshackled.

“I could do that,” said Rosalie, surprising them both.


End file.
